Rogers says he must be ‘half and half’
Rogers says he must be ‘half and half’ Lynn Adams Fri, 08/12/2022 - 05:55
Tom Rogers hasn‚t quite figured out if he‚s left-handed or righthanded. He‚s pretty sure he‚s not ambidextrous, because he does somethings exclusively with his left hand and others exclusively with his right hand.
But, he admits, that‚s just the way he is.
“I guess I‚m kinda half and half,” he says about his somethings-left somethings-right propensities.
“I probably started out with my left when I was in school, but I‚m thinkin‚ they made me switch when I was real young in school, and that kinda … I don‚t know, it made me nervous, too, so I don‚t know if that was a good thing. But a lotta people when they‚re left-handed like that, they wanted you to be right-handed back in the day,” says the 62-yearold, who handles maintenance for the Sequoyah County Court House, where he says “I usually work with both hands.”
“I shoot a gun righthanded. I shoot a bow right-handed. About the only thing I do left-handed is I shoot a basketball left-handed, I throw lefthanded and I bat lefthanded. But I write with my right. I don‚t write with my left or nothin‚ like that. That‚s about the only thing I do is throw, bat and shoot a basketball. Everything else pretty much right.
“I split wood left-handed, too,” he interjects.
“I ain‚t gonna wear one out before I do the other, probably.”
When he used to wear a wristwatch, he wore it on his right hand, as lefthanders usually do.
But other than activities associated with sports — which he says he hasn‚t played for 15 years — “most of the things I do is right-handed.”
At the family homestead near Central Public School, he pitches lefthanded to his right-handed six-year-old grandson, but his youngest grandson hasn‚t expressed a preference.
“I‚ve got a three-year-old grandson, I don‚t know what he‚s going to do just yet. He does a little bit with his left, but I don‚t know how that‚s going to turn out with him. He starts to school this year, so we‚ll find out more what he‚s going to do.”
He says no one else in his family is left-handed, but recalls an uncle who was a school teacher in St. Louis. “He wrote left-handed, and when he got a certain age, he changed for hisself, nobody changed him. I think he can go either way — he can write righthanded or left. Very few people can do that.”
Being a one-time lefthander — or currently as a sometimes left-hander — has not presented obstacles Rogers couldn‚t overcome.
“I was blessed to have a good family and good raisin‚, so it‚s not affected me any being left-handed. It‚s not been a hindrance to me or nothin‚ like that.”
That‚s apparently the way it is when you‚re half and half.
