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Ups and Downs of a Tall Man
| Article
# : |
13458 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1987 |
1,449 Words |
| Author
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Adri de Groot
Adri de Groot, a culture editor at THE WORLD & I, has
published several articles on organs in Dutch and American
publications. |
Once upon a time in the land of tall people, a tall man walked behind a somewhat "shorter" fellow and shouted: "Hey, tallie!" Whereupon, the shorter tall guy turned around angrily, ready to start a fistfight. Upon seeing that his provoker was several inches taller, he bursted out laughing - content with his abbreviated tallness.
I was once told by a friend in New York that there were three tall monuments in the Big Apple: The Empire State Building, the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, and yours truly.
Being tall is hazardous to my health. Most people think that I am very strong. They don't want to mess with me. I can walk through bad neighborhoods and hooligans think I am the police, for whom would the police send other than their tallest people? And a very tall person who wants to be a policeman is going to have an easy life after the police academy. Law enforcement without personal reinforcement. I rest on my tall laurels and boast of my supposed strength, but never exercise. Exercising makes me look very odd, like a giraffe trying to touch his toes. I don't go swimming either - since my father told me that I look like an elephant jumping off the high dive. Never again, unless they make swimming pools for tall people only.
Being tall is hazardous to my head - especially in Europe. That is a very old place, and people have grown taller through the ages. Old houses provide instant claustrophobia - especially my grandmother's old house. After one vacation, my back was bent and my head bandaged and dizzy. But even in the modern world, the head has to take, unfairly, the rap for the rest of the body. I dream of an automobile - called the TALL-LX, or something like that - with a headrest that reaches the head, rather than just the neck, and a sunroof that doesn't pull my hair out when I open it up or bang my head when going over a bump. The solution I suggest is to drive a very low car with an open sunroof - wearing a helmet!
Being tall is hazardous to my legs. The only place I can be truly comfortable is on top of a very tall building, like a church tower or a skyscraper. Tall people are used to heights. But in churches, movie theatres, buses and trains, my legs never fit the provided space. So I always sit next to the aisle and use it as my leg-stick-out space.
Being tall is hazardous to my wallet. I walk by any department store, and I see those wonderful letters on the window: SALE. Although very skeptical, I
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