Handy - (PowerHouseCreatives Contest) – The World In Our Hands

Handy

How did the word “handy” originate, I wonder. When we say things like, “This is a handy thing to have,” or “It’s handy to have one of these around,” why didn’t we use the word “useful” instead? Useful probably existed before handy did, I’m guessing. And don’t forget “helpful.”

Our hands are useful. They’re also handy. But many other parts of our body are both useful and handy. I wonder if humans had pinchers instead of hands, would the word “handy” still exist? There doesn’t really seem to be a logical reasoning suggesting “handy” is derived from “hand.”

If someone is touching us inappropriately, we might say they’re “feely.” When we hear the word “feely” we immediately think of grossness and hands doing disgusting things they shouldn’t be doing. We don’t have feelers though. Some insects, (both land and marine), have feelers however.

I think feely is derived from feelers, because thinking about insects’ feelers is kind of gross. But hand and the meaning of handy don’t jive, except for the time some jerk, who once changed the name of walkie-talkies to handy-talkies, had his fifteen seconds of fame.

Our hands. It’s pretty hard to do stuff without them, but many people who were born without them or lost them somehow, have made their feet their replacement “hands.” I’m grateful for my hands.

The cover picture for this post is something I painted with my hands several years ago. It’s an awful painting, but my drawing is even worse, if you can believe that.

For a backdrop for my display of hands photo, I chose to use a couple of my several old jerseys from my days of playing sports. The “Bomb Squad” jersey is from around 2002. I played shortstop on the team of my employer. We made explosive-detecting X-Ray scanners so airport baggage inspectors can see them without opening the bag.

Hence, "Bomb Squad."

I was part of a team designing and writing software for producing 3D images of a detected object inside baggage, which relied on several types of threats and algorithms to detect the objects.

The inspector could rotate the detected image in 3D to look at every part and every angle of it and determine if it's really a threat or not. If undecided, the inspector could have the bag removed from the conveyor and inspect it manually by opening the bag.

The number 40 jersey goes way back to the eighties, when I first played on a flag-football team in a city league. I played flag-football a lot. In ‘96 I got the trophy.

I also wore the number 40 when I played regular tackle football in high school.

The most use my hands get these days, has got to be when I’m typing. I’ve typed more in the past two years than I ever had before I joined steemit, and I’ve improved my typing skills a lot in that time.

I’ve built many models with my hands and I was quite good at it.

Just look at this Clipper Ship that I built.

Just kidding. I didn’t build that beauty… Someone threw it away, I couldn’t believe it, and so I snatched it up. I’ve had it for around twenty-five years now.

Finally, there’s one last thing I do with my hands, (fingers mostly), that I can add here, I think.

I practice guitar daily. That’s not to suggest I’m getting any better, but it’s something I do with my hands, and my hands can be seen.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about, and seeing my hands.

_{Handy © free-reign 2020}

This is my entry for the PHC contest run by @zord189, which is only for PowerHouseCreatives members. This week, he has us writing a post featuring pictures of our hands for “The World In Our Hands” contest.

Thanks for reading!

Sources for images used in this post:

All photos used in this post are my own.