As a kid, I was a little short. Not like I couldn’t go on most of the rides at Valleyfair kind of short, but more of your average-Joe, vertically-challenged variety. Which wasn’t really that big of a deal to me until it was time to go to Middle School. A whole huge new school of two buildings and a virtual labyrinth of hallways complete with endless rows of these things called ‘lockers’ and new teachers who I had never met. And all these bigger kids to pick on me? And no recess?! NO RECESS?? Terrifying.

I worked myself up all summer long thinking of ways to postpone the inevitable. I tried running away from home…that was a bust. I tried thinking of other things, but that didn’t help. Transferring schools was a no-go as it was pretty much the exact same problem. What on earth was I going to do? And then, finally, summer came to a close and it was the first day of school.

Gulp.

Naturally, I woke up to full-body hives on a 90-degree day {did I mention this Middle School lacked air conditioning?}. Sporting a turtle neck and black and white spotted jumpsuit {palm*forehead, thanks mom}, I dragged my feet down the driveway and boarded the bus to school. My only saving grace was that my big brother and cousin were also at the Middle School…however, they filled my head with horror stories of teachers who threw desks and a guy named Captain K-bob, and a shop teacher who will give you detention if you speak in his class and then ignored me for the rest of the bus ride as I sat wallowing in my own self-pity, willing the bus to tip over. It didn’t.

We got to school and my brother basically threw me in the direction of my locker before high-fiving a friend and disappearing into the sea of students. I slowly ducked under most the kids and located my locker when a shadow loomed over me. And a devious voice sang out, ‘well, isn’t that Little’s little sister…’ followed by a chorus of snickers and a few more inappropriate jeers. It was beginning. Holy balls.

I was weighing my options between simply walking into my locker and closing the door or sprinting down the hallway when suddenly, out of the constant stream of average-sized 6th-8th graders appeared this unusually tall kid. And the best part, I don’t remember him saying anything. He silently walked up, opened his locker, moved some stuff around, closed it and turned around to stare down my older opponents. Being that this tall kid was towering over them by a good few inches and he wasn’t saying a word, the three boys kind of sat there, dumbstruck, glancing at each other awkwardly. Height, apparently, is everything when you’re in 6th grade. And then…slowly…the boys just…disappeared. An immense sigh of relief left my body and the tall kid turned at looked at me. With humor dancing in his eyes and a comically upturned eyebrow he nonchalantly devised a plan to meet every morning and walk to our homeroom class with each other. With a wry smile from him and a big laugh from me, we turned and walked to class together.

Perhaps 6th grade wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

Thanks to this magical modern marvel of ‘alphabetical order’, our lockers were positioned next to each other until we graduated high school. We went to prom with the same group of people; we partied at each others weddings. I celebrated the birth of his first son and am now lucky enough to photograph the first year of his second son. I can only hope that his boys retain an ounce of the poise and grace of this gentle giant; the original tall kid.

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