I walked the half-mile loop at Hickories Park the other day. In a counterclockwise direction. The arrow on the pathway instructs you to go the other way (clockwise). It\u2019s a safety thing. They want you to face traffic as you go around since cars share the loop with pedestrians, skaters and bicyclists. Most of us ignore the arrow and walk with traffic at our back. It just feels wrong to walk around a circle in a clockwise direction. I wonder why?<\/p>\n
All track meets have the runners going counterclockwise, same with roller and ice rinks, horse tracks (except in Europe) and auto races. Any activity that goes around in a circle goes counterclockwise. Is this a right-handed thing? Do left-handed people feel uncomfortable going counterclockwise?<\/p>\n
Or, is it a Northern Hemisphere thing, like water going out of the bathtub swirling in a counterclockwise direction as it goes out the drain. When you cross the equator into South America, the swirl goes the other way. It\u2019s the same thing with hurricanes. The wind swirls around the eye counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. It\u2019s called the Coriolis Effect. The planet makes it happen that way. I guess it affects us too.<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t matter in a few decades; today\u2019s kids won\u2019t know what clockwise or counterclockwise means. All the clocks they are growing up with are digital. Tighten a bolt by turning it clockwise and loosen it by turning it counterclockwise? That instruction won\u2019t mean a thing. Righty-tighty and lefty loosey will replace it. The transformation has already begun.<\/p>\n
The signs for circular tracks, rinks and the like won\u2019t ever instruct users to go in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction; they will have to say, \u201cWalk with your left (or right) foot closest to the center of the circle. Or, they\u2019ll paint arrows on the pavement like that at Hickories Park. It doesn\u2019t really matter. Everybody, except maybe lefties, only feel comfortable walking in a counterclockwise direction so that\u2019s the way they will go. We\u2019re a counterclockwise species. If you\u2019re rolling your eyes by now, check the mirror to see in which direction they roll. I bet they are rolling in a counterclockwise direction. Or, to say it in modern terms, \u201cLefty loosey!\u201d<\/p>\n
Complaints! Errors! Disputes! Send to mlessler7@gmail.com.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I walked the half-mile loop at Hickories Park the other day. In a counterclockwise direction. The arrow on the pathway instructs you to go the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\n