Being tall has all kinds of advantages when you are male, but these advantages slim down to near zero as a female.
I can't remember a time when I wasn't tall. I started out in extra long baby clothes I'm sure and can remember the comment at every new introduction, "My but you're tall!"
"How old did you say she is?" Friends would question my average sized parents. "Our Ruth or Sarah or Jane is a year younger and she is a good head shorter." They'd eye me strangely like a side show freak.
Now I was tall for my generation. I reached my full height of five feet ten inches when I was in the eighth grade and stopped growing at that point. But I went through all the agonies of being physically different than my girl friends. Tall, skinny and shapeless when five foot two and cuddly and curving was the in thing.
I played for noon dancing in the gym in Junior High as I could hide behind the piano pounding out "Sleepy Time Down South" while my shorter girl friends danced with those slow-to-grow fellows.
Constantly being told to stand up straight and not to slouch, and having to buy clothes that were ample in the hem department and made for fuller figures I really envied my short friends.
My best friend was about five feet, another just a little over that but we were constant companions all through High School. They dated but not me. I positively refused to be seen with a fellow shorter than myself.
My mother's argument was. "He can't help being short anymore than you can being tall." But my reply was, "I can help by not going out with him."
These were the days before tall girl shops or Hi-Toppers clubs or anything ready made for the taller than average.
Kids hate to be different and I was no exception. I felt to be seen with a short fellow, let alone dance with him, only made me stand out just that much more.
I had an English teacher, a Mr. White who often chaperoned our school dances. His wife was a tall, slender, stately blonde--a truly lovely, ancient woman of thirty-five to my fourteen, but she was my height saver.
"Give the fellows time to grow," she'd tell me. But she kept repeating, "Don't lose your sense of humor and ever take yourself seriously. Take John over there," and she'd point to her husband, my athletic, six foot four English teacher.
"I met John when I was a High School freshman and he was a little guy--hardly came to my shoulder for two years--but we were friends. We enjoyed laughing and talking to each other--and well, you see you can't ignore a guy just because of his height--He might grow."
And grow they did, most of the fellows that is. But stubborn me, I never lost that first requirement for my date--He must be taller than myself.
Well I'm sure the Lord decided that I could handle a tall girl problem when our daughter was born. At thirteen she was six feet tall and enjoyed every inch of it. She loved high heels and never worried about being inches taller than her escort. She graduated from Junior High School the last and tallest in line. There were a few tears shed over dateless dances in High School, but to many she went with some fellow just shoulder high.
"I like to dance with a fellow I don't have to guide on the floor because he can't see around me," she'd moan. My promise of just wait until she got to college seemed to help and the first fellow she brought home from college was a six foot five basketball player and from then on there were a series of tall men in her life. At her wedding, high heels made she and her husband the same height.
She watched her younger brothers grow to six feet six and six feet four and her only comment was, "If you marry a short girl--boy I won't speak to you." They didn't, their wives are both close to six feet.
This tall business really does go on. Our daughter's middle girl at twelve is six feet. Lovely, thin and fragile looking she towers above her same age girl friends. She's long legged and her mother in all six feet of her and you know something? I know our daughter will easily handle her tall problem.
Written for Port Charlotte Village newsletter around 1986.