PACIFIC PALISADES, CA.  AUGUST 1, 2019

I’ve was just thinking about how glad I am that I’m lefty.

So what if neurobiologists think lefties can be traced back to a mutation 200,000 years ago.  So what if we’re more likely to suffer from dyslexia, schizophrenia, stuttering and tend to be more absent-minded.

So what if the more primitive the primate, the more likely they’re lefties. Lemurs and other prosimians are 75% lefties; macaques and other old-world monkeys are 50/50; gorillas and chimpanzees are 35% lefties, and only 10% of humans are southpaws.

So what if “left” comes from the Old English ‘lyft,’ meaning “weak” or “useless.”  Or that, in Latin, lefty means to “sinister,” and that in the Bible we’re “cursed into everlasting fire.”

Leonardo Da Vinci. Isaac Newton. Robert De Niro.  Pablo Picasso. Neil Armstrong. Michelangelo. Prince William.  Aristotle. Raphael. Albert Einstein. Cole Porter. Benjamin Franklin. Bill Gates. Brad Pitt. Helen Keller. Babe Ruth. Alexander the Great. Joan of Arc. Chaplin. John McEnroe. Henry Ford. Paul McCartney. Beethoven. Rafael Nadal.  Mark Twain. Julius Caesar. Harpo Marx. Jimi Hendrix.  General Colin Powell. Lou Gehrig. Robert DeNiro. Steve Forbes. Robert Redford. Sylvester Stallone. Spike Lee. Paul Simon. Napoleon Bonaparte. Oprah Winfrey. Edward R. Murrow. Charlie Chaplin. Clarence Darrow. H.G. Welles. James Baldwin. Jean Genet. Edwin Buzz Aldrin. David Rockefeller. Ramses II. David Letterman. Charlemagne. H. Norman Schwartzkopf. Dr. Albert Schweitzer. Tiberius. Sting. August Piccard. Bob Dylan.

Primate that.

Yours,

— Jimmy Dunne.