Feb 08 2003
Once upon a time…
Lacking inspiration for a new entry but wanting to post something, it was fortuitous that the other night I came upon a box containing some old high school and college papers (fortuitous for me, but perhaps not for you, Dear Readers). I’m easily amused, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before; I found that I got a kick out of some of the pieces I had to write for a high school “creative writing” class 14-15 years ago, flawed as they are. What follows is a draft of one such paper that was apparently never finished. While I suspect the assignment was to write something of a tall tale, much of what was written in this essay was taken from real experiences (I was always one of the tallest in my class, taller than most boys; I actually did have a guy ask me to dance in jr. high because he felt sorry for me; even now clothes to fit a taller-than-average female body are hard to come by; the basketball descriptions aren’t really that far off from truth), which is why I find myself still snickering at some of the images these paragraphs describe. Apologies for the formatting & length, neither of which are particularly easy for reading on screen.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Beth. Actually, she wasn’t such a little girl, even when she was born. She weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces when she was first brought into this world, and was 30 inches tall. To tell the truth, she was quite a big girl. When she was in grade school she towered over all the other kids at 5′3″. She came home every day with sore knees because her long legs couldn’t fit under the small wooden desks. When the classes lined up outside after recess, they had to stand shortest to tallest. All the girls were at the front of the line, then the boys, and then came Beth. She always ended up with a cold because she had to stand the longest out in the chilly air. When the other girls were jumping rope, Beth tried to join in, but the ropes were always too short and she would trip herself up and land on the hottop, skinning her bony knees. The girls with her tried to stifle wheir giggles as Beth’s face turned as red as the drops of blood welling up on the palms of her hands where she tried to break her fall. Not only was she teased about her gracelessness, but the others also poked fun at the clothes her mother dressed her in. At her age, none of the styles her friends wore came in her sizes; they were all either too short or too tight. She had to settle for the bell-bottomed trousers that came in Indian Red and fluorescent green or blue, or wear skirts (Heaven forbid!) with knee-his pulled up all the way. Oh, how she looked forward to the days of Junior High!
Then came the day when they “graduated” from grammar school and moved their way up to the seventh grade. Beth was ecstatic - she would be put with kids from other schools, kids she had never seen before - finally she woul dmeet others of her height, and she would be happy. However, disappointment met her that first week. Granted the boys and girls were taller - they had grown over the summer - but so was Beth. That first day of school her mother measured her height, and Beth was dismayed to find out she had grown to reach the monstrous altitude of 5 feet, 11 inches. Now the desks were way too small for her large frame - when she sat normally, like the others, the desk would balance on her thighs, the four legs a good two inches off the floor. Clothes were even harder to come by — all her pants stopped one or two inches before they reached her ankles, and the song “The Tide is High” had been sung to her so often she could sing it in her sleep.
Dances were the highlight of school for many girls, but not for Beth. She was still growing, and grace, such a necessity for dancing, was still not a part of her body’s vocabulary. When she tried to “get down” to the fast songs, she lumbered, and her neck stuck out and arms flapped like a chicken (not to mention the fact that her long legs wouldn’t allow her to really get “down”). Needless to say, she didn’t feel comfortable on the dance floor, towering over everyone else, so she contented herself to sit along the side, watching. Occasionally a jealous classmate would run up to her and beg her to tell who “Johnny” was dancing with now, and Beth would just stand up and peer over everyone’s heads until she spied Johnny and his partner half way across the floor. “Sure beats having to stand on a chair,” the other girls said amongst themselves. Once in a while, one of the not-so-popular boys would ask Beth to dance, because they felt sorry for her sittin goff by herself, patting her hand on her knee in time to the music. When she went out on the floor with them, she barely had to raise her hands to meet their shoulders, and they were looking at her, eye to . . . . well, let’s just say she was just a bit more than head and shoulders above every boy she danced with. At least she never stepped on anyone’s feet, which was quite an accomplishment considering the size of her own. The taller the person, the larger his or her feet, and Beth was no exception. Clothes were hard enough to come by, but shoes size nine were extremely scares. The only ones on hand in the local shoe stores were second-hand clodhoppers that any teen would be embarrassed to wear, even while playing dress-up.
There was one thing Beth stood out in (that’s ability-wise; she stood out in everything physically), and that was basketball. That’s not to say she was a terrific player. She wasn’t. She hadn’t good control over her gangly body, so she ran funny, and her hands weren’t terribly strong. But no one could block her shot, and she was able to grab every rebound that came her way (not because she could jump higher than everyone else, but becvause her arms were so long she could just stand on her tiptoes and out-rebound even the best leapers). She wasn’t a very good shot, either, but because of her “wingspan” her rebounding average was the highest in the league. She would just heave the ball up to the hoop three or four times in one possession, grab the ball after it bricked off the bottom of the rim, and try again.
…….. to be continued ………
Heh.
