Paging Randy Newman
Posted By Russ Emerson on April 29, 2004 at 2:48 pm
Short People got no reason
Short People got no reason
Short People got no reason
To live
Lloyd Garver, a short man, riffs on tall people: The Trouble With Tall People.
Now, me being 6’8″ may have warped my perspective on the whole subject.
Tall people have a special status in our culture.
Right. “Big lummox” is pretty special, you betcha. “Bull in a china shop” is even more special.
Often without good reason, they are thought of as leaders — as “standing tall above the rest.”
“Standing tall…” Let me clue you in, Lloyd: we tall folk do stand tall above the rest, by definition. For that reason alone, we shall conquer and rule. Get used to servitude, Lloyd.
Want to be my footstool?
In school, the tallest boys are the first to get dates.
This may be true. I got few dates in high school – probably because I didn’t hit my growth spurt until I was in college. I got my revenge, though, by out-growing everyone in the SBHS class of ’80. But I still didn’t get to date the cute girls… dang.
Tall girls are told they look great — “like beautiful models.”
Well, they do. But if we tall fellows can get all the dates we want, how does that explain the “tall man + short woman couple” phenomenon? Surely you’ve noticed it, Lloyd? [I have a “tall man/short woman” theory that I might write about some other time.]
Short people with big egos are often said to have a “Napoleon Complex,” but nobody ever talks about tall, egotistical people as having a “de Gaulle Complex.”
DeGaulle was French. Who wants to be compared to a Frenchman? (Napoleon was Corsican, of course.)
The average height in this country is 5 feet 9 inches for men, and about 5 feet 4 for women. Anybody below that comes up short.
Oh, a pun. Ha. Ha. Please, stop. My ribs hurt. Ouch. Please, no more.
Actually, Garver’s column makes some interesting observations about height, though he fails to mention the downside of being huge in an ordinary-sized world. I’ll never, for instance, be able to drive a Ferrari. It’d take a shoehorn, axle grease and a bigger bank account just to get me into one.
Garver’s comments relating to social status and income, and average height increasing over the decades are worth reading. The latter in particular I can believe. Three of my grandparents were quite short by today’s standards, but both of my parents reached over 6′ tall. I expect that my nephew, whose parents are 6’5″ and 6’1″, will end up taller than me.
Poor kid.
