Photo by Rick Geary

Thousands of the country’s social misfits and psychological dysfunctionals have migrated to San Diego.

Dear Matthew Alice: I'm continually amazed at the phenomenal percentage of left-handed people there are in San Diego!! It’s almost like something from The Twilight Zone/ Can you tell me the actual percentage of left-handed to right-handed people in San Diego and how we compare to other cities in the U.S.? — Feeling Left Out, San Diego

The best of the “Matt for a Day” musings for Question #2 [Ay chihuahua!]

Steve Binda, Lemon Grove: ...To your credit is the fact that you’ve noticed the “alarming” increase in left-handed people here. Daughters of the Devil. Freaks of Nature. One prevailing theory describes San Diego as the downwind corner of the American pond. Thinking they’ll find the solution to their unfulfilled lives in a better climate, thousands of the country’s social misfits and psychological dysfunctionals have migrated here. Thus the increase in southpaws. Personally, I’ve never subscribed to this. According to the local expert I consulted, 10 percent of the U.S. population is left-handed. Some put the percentage at 40, but the truth is, nobody really knows. San Diego has no reason to be different, but again, there’ve been no conclusive studies. One thing experts do agree on: There’s been an overall, country-wide increase in left-handies. Why? Because schoolteachers and parents have stopped whacking the “wrong” hand with a hickory stick, so there are more natural lefties who’ve avoided being forcibly changed during their formative years.

Josh “I’m Right” Board, San Diego: Well, you’re out in left field. San Diego isn’t some city that breeds lefties the way Aintry breeds banjo-playin’ freaks. Approximately 30 percent of the population is left-handed. Just because you know a lot of people who are lefties, that doesn’t change the percentage. But the fact that you feel the percentage is higher, it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Every time you meet a lefty, you think, “Wow, there’s another one.” But you’re not keeping track of the righties you meet. Did you know two of the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix are lefties? But I’m sure if you checked all musicians, the percentage would still be 30. I had two friends buy ’60s Mustangs around the same time. All of a sudden, I seemed to notice them everywhere. It’s not because when my friends bought Mustangs they magically appeared all over the freeways. I just happen to notice them now.

Ken Bergquist, Poway: Our sense of direction is oriented to the north. When we face north, east is to our right, and west is to our left. It stands to reason, then, that people living on the East Coast have a secondary orientation to the east, or right, and the West Coast to the west, or left. Since San Diego is on the West Coast — well, you can figure out the rest. As for any numbers and percentages, your guess is as good as anyone else’s. The actual lefty-to-righty ratio will fluctuate roughly along the lines of east-to-west or west-to-east migration patterns. This same theory can be applied to political orientation, as demonstrated by the large number of left-wing groups based in California.

Kenneth Enright, Encinitas: Yup, it’s true. San Diego ranks number three in the nation for its percentage of left-handed people (15.2). Seattle (15.9) and Denver (15.6) are numbers one and two, while Cleveland ranked at the end of 100-cities studies.... As for why, it could be because the lefties are a tad smarter than their right-handed counterparts and love living in America’s most beautiful city. Either that or they are like attorneys, and ever since they stopped DDT spraying, their eggs have been hatching like crazy....

Dave Chesavage, Ocean Beach: Frankly, this righty thinks lefties have gotten a bad rap.... Lefties have to deal with doorknobs, scissors, bowling balls, golf clubs, coffee mugs, and other devices designed to meet the needs of 87 to 93 percent of the population.... Also, some people (righties, probably) have discovered a correlation between left-handedness and alcoholism, insanity, and even shorter life span. On the other, uh, hand, growing up with nuns constantly whapping you with a ruler is probably enough to drive anyone to drink. O.J. Simpson is a lefty, but then so’s the Queen Mother....

Mike “Lefty” Gleeson, Ocean Beach: Well, FLO, you’re right. There are a lot of us sinister (Latin for “left”) folks out here. According to POOP (Profound Order of Portsiders), 21.05 percent of San Diegans are left-handed. This far exceeds the national average of 12.73 percent. POOP has several explanations for this. First, let’s establish credentials. To qualify as a genuine left-hander (and eliminate those ambidextrous impostors), you must write, eat, play sports, and flip people off with your left hand. Corkscrews and can openers must be baffling to you. San Diego, being located at roughly 32 degrees north latitude and 117 degrees west longitude, is of course subject to the Coriolis effect and the Van Allen belt, not to mention left-leaning politics here....

Attention, lefties. A. Lemmon Tort, M.A.’s staff ambulance chaser, suggested we head off plots for a left-handed class-action libel suit arising from all this. So next week we’ll offer real lefty facts, though none will answer FLO’s basically unprovable observation. Along the way, we’ve uncovered a chance for you beleaguered sinisters to make a scientific statement. Left-handed volunteers are needed for an upcoming study of what makes you all so doggoned unique. Assuming you are. In the data-gathering stage of a USCD Ph.D. (southpaw grad students, take pity), the investigator will be testing at the Institute for Human Science in Encinitas. So take that left index finger and dial 736-J013 (voice mail). No lab animals or pals of M. Alice will be harmed in the testing of this product. Thanks.

July 18 update

We promised you some real lefty facts this week after our bout of “Matt for a Day” speculation on the geography of the southpaw. Right at the top, I’ll say there’s no scientific evidence that San Diego has more than its share of lefties. There are no studies of where left-handers congregate. If “Feeling Left Out” believes he/she’s suddenly meeting more, that could be because the number of lefties in the population has grown, since kids are no longer forced to write with their right hands. More likely, it’s just a self-fulfilling observation; F.L.O. now only notices the lefties.

Highlights of what’s (more or less) known: Left-handers have more nerve-fiber connections between their left and right brain hemispheres, which might result in greater communication between the sides and less hemisphere specialization. Genetics influences handedness, though some scientists believe that lefties might also have an excess of testosterone or have suffered very minor birth-related brain injuries.

Between 10 and 15 percent of the population is left-handed. (And 10 percent of the figures in Cro-Magnon cave paintings are shown using tools with their left hands.) There are more left-handed men than women. Populations that include more left-handers than the rate in the general population: Baseball Hall of Fame members (50 percent are lefties!), premature babies, dyslexics, the mentally retarded, high-IQ children, homosexuals, lawyers, architects, the deaf, migraine sufferers, pediatric emergency room accident patients, people with speech defects, and students with extremely high SAT scores (especially boys’ math scores). The jury’s still out on whether lefties really are more “artistic” and righties more “logical.”

If you’d like to make your contribution to the science of leftyology, southpaw volunteers will be needed this fall for a study of what makes lefties so unique, if in fad they are. It will be conducted at the California Institute for Human Science in Encinitas as part of a Ph.D. degree. So take that left index finger and dial 736-1013 (voice mail). Science thanks you.