As many guys do when successfully
completing a special task, they raise their hands in the air and demand, “High
five!”
I’m not saying this is an
exclusive activity to men but, being a man and living the life, I know about
men better than I do about other sexes and sexual orientations.
We just finished planting fence
posts into the freshly mixed cement, which was poured in perfectly spaced
holes. A few minutes passed and, during
the inspection, someone shouted, “High five!”
The three of us gathered, doffed
our caps with our left hands, and slapped the other hands with our right.
A small smile – more than a grin
– simultaneously appeared on all three faces.
And all was good. We instantly
realized we were looking at another job well done.
We worked as a team, which some
professional sports organizations often fail to do. I also dare say we all would stand for the
National Anthem if it was played. But I
digress.
Reflecting on that special moment
in guy-hood, I began thinking about something I had heard in elementary
school. It was unnerving at thee time,
and still induces ‘the willies’ in me when it dwell on it.
If you guessed polydactylism or
hyperdactylism, you win! If you just
shook your head in awe, it was worth it for me to use such big words. I occasionally slip big words such as
“exsanguination” and “ablation” into my blogs, but rarely terms that conjure up
something akin to cooties.
Polydactylism is when a cat, or a
person, is born with six fingers or toes.
Hyperdactylism is when these people have six fingers on more than one
had, or more than six toes on each foot.
Here’s the scoop. Evidently this condition is not as uncommon
as you would think. This is a genetic
condition that appears in art works in ancient Mesopotamia and Jordan
I don’t recall seeing these
additional digits in art references in school or museums, but I now need to
make a return trip to some of these repositories of culture.
In any case, I needed to satisfy
my curiosity about how many currently living people are subjects of
polydactylism.
My extensive research – no thanks
necessary – revealed a fairly sizeable list of prominent people, although I had
never heard of most.
Gemma Arterton, an actress who
appeared in a James Bond movie had an extra finger on each hand; Theodore
Roosevelt “Hound Dog” Taylor, a blues guitarist, had six fingers on his left
hand; a West Indies Cricketer, Garfield Sobers, was born with extra fingers on
both hands; and Antonio Alfonseca, a baseball pitcher who floated among several
professional teams during his career, was born with six fingers and was very
proud of it.
I told you these folks were not
big names that would evoke an, “Oh, my!” from most dedicated readers.
But I also discovered that two
women, Halle Berry
So if you saw Antonio Alfonseca
at a ballpark, and he just struck out the third man in the inning, would you
yell, “High six!”?
I’m just saying…
