To the editor:

Around 1900, people living on Whidbey Island noticed an odd thing. All the children born on the island were left-handed. No one could determine the cause of such an affliction until 1930 when a geologist and a surveyor studied the island. They determined that Whidbey Island was not lying “flat: in Puget Sound waters. In fact the island had a definite “tilt” from west to east.

Because of this tilt, all the children were “weighted” from west to east and, therefore, naturally started life as “lefties.” For more than 30 years, children with this disability were doomed to suffer from grade school (penmanship) all the way into military service (properly firing a rifle from the right shoulder).

After the “tilt” discovery in 1930, fathers began taking their mothers-to-be to the mainland to have their babies. This restored the averages of more right-handed children over left-handed.

The phenomenon slipped into obscurity after World War II, mainly because people discovered one could write with either hand and fire a rifle from either shoulder.

Studies were made in the 1960s to determine if the “tilt” in the island could be corrected. Professor Dufus Horste, a noted geologist, determined why the island titled in the first place; when the original settlers felled the first growth trees, they started on the east side of the island and worked across to the west. The sudden displacement of so much weight caused the island to tilt and it never righted itself.

Professor Horste recommended a highway be built up the center of the island from south to north. This would divide the island and allow it to seek its original balance. On the day the highway was completed, there was gentle rumble as the island leveled itself. The left-handed curse disappeared.

This bit of trivia has faded from memory of present day islanders. That’s a pity, because it would be of interest to tourist visiting our little bit of paradise here in the Puget Sound.

Richard M. Brauer

Langley