Coming Up Short

I intended to be taller but somehow did not quite make it all the way.

In my best friend’s wedding I was the best man. I was also the shortest of the groomsmen. At the time it really stood out to me. When I look at the photos it still leaves an impression.

Fortunately, he married a very short woman. I had at least one person literally to look down on. Her sister, however, her maid of honor, was a tallish woman, if not quite taller than I.

I know I should be grateful for my genes. My parents were kind enough to bestow the chromosomes on me.

Although it is their fault in a sense that I did not grow taller, they did not do it with conscious malice. The genes are to blame.

Even if I did not reach the height to which I aspired, I managed to grow up and, knock on wood, hope to continue with roughly the same stature for years to come.

Usually on Saturdays at the gym, I work my legs. Today, however, since I was feeling my shortness more acutely than usual, I opted to work my upper body with a focus on my shoulders and arms.

Even if I am not as tall as many in my own and subsequent generations, I can still sport some sexy shoulders by the time I am ready to shuffle shortly off this mortal coil.

At the gym, there is a wide range of heights and widths. I fall somewhere in the middle in all my dimensions. I am not the most nor the least.

Recently, since the pandemic, I do find I am one of the oldest. There used to be more old people regularly working out.

Even if I kid myself and, looking around, thinking, “That guy may not be older than I am but he sure looks like it,” I know I am often the oldest person in the building.

The youngsters know it, too. I get more “sir” hits, not only at the gym, but also everywhere in my neighborhood.

Today as I was leaving the gym an old lady who looked from the way she slouched in one of the chairs by the front doors like she could barely walk jumped up with astonishing alacrity and grace to open the door for me.

“Let me get that for you, sir!” she croaked, as I started back at her dexterous intervention. I thanked her. She smiled a craggy grin.

And she was taller than I’ll ever be. I could live to be as old as Methuselah and I’ll never grow any taller. All the opportunities tall folks get, not in my stars.

Or not in my genes, more accurately. If I have to be this short, I guess I should strive for factual, science-based articulation of my limitations.

I could go on all day about this and other subjects. I may be short but I am definitely long-winded.