re: #137 dat_said

First grade. Catholic school. Late 60’s. I got a gentle slap on the back of the head and then the kind nun would take my pencil out of my left hand and place it in my right hand. She would sweetly say “try it this way”. Took me a week or two to figure it out but now I can write like a well-trained physician.

She didn’t have lunch duty, so I managed to maintain my European style of eating. None of this inefficient swapping the knife back and forth.

I had a friend of mine’s father-in-law (who is 90-something) ask me about where I learned my table manners and family ancestry last Christmas because he noticed me using my fork with my left hand to eat while the knife in my right hand did the cutting. He wasn’t being insulting as he knew there were different cultural standards regarding using cutlery.