If youth is wasted on the young, then height is wasted on the young and tall. I can recall with clarity my disappointment in my sixth-grade class portrait. I had experienced a growth spurt that summer. I had always been tall, but now the fact of my height was unavoidable – a topic among relatives, teachers, even strangers at the grocery store. The school’s photographer assigned me to the back row, next to the tallest boy in the class – such cruel fate! From then on, I had only contempt for my height.
My solution was to hunch. To shave even just a few inches from my stature, I’d slink to my classes with my shoulders rounded forward and my head down. Later, I spoke to boys with my body
