SHORT GIRLS

Yesterday was 'National Short Girl Appreciation Day'. It was not a federal holiday, despite our president and his bestie having a well-known praedilection for a certain demographic, which is stubbornly denied by his enablers, but it really should have been. But if I were in charge, it certainly would be. Seeing as I myself am of average height for a male, you can understand that statistically half of the people I know are, in fact, shorter than me. And in the case of the distaff side, that proportion increases.

When I was fourteen my parents found out that I smoked. I got a long lecture from my mother about the evils of that pernicious habit, filled with medical fright terminology, and ending with the dire message that it would stunt my growth.

She chainsmoked Kent Filter Kings while giving me that lecture.
She had started smoking when she was in the Waves.
She had joined while in college.
She was four foot ten.

[Officially she was taller than that.]

My thought, after she told me about the growth thing, was, sarcastically, that it must have sabotaged her last growth spurt, huh. Naturally I kept my mouth shut, because you do not snark a woman capable of wrecking three jeeps and hitting a bullseye (not simultaneously), and it is best to listen gravidly with a blank potato face when your mother imparts staggeringly off-target "wisdom". Doing otherwise stunts your growth.

Photos of her in uniform show her looking stern, serious.
They do not illustrate her shortity.

In part, because of short girls, we won the war.

Sadly I had entirely overlooked the day yesterday. I had other things on my mind, and short girls were not part of the programme, did not feature significantly, were very largely not in view for most of that time. Perhaps because I tend to look straight ahead.


"We must look forward, not back, and upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling, for freedom!"


Next year, unless something comes up, it will probably pass without me noticing again.

Note: both of my parents and all of their adult relatives served during the war. As did all their college classmates and friends. People of that generation did that, didn't puff themselves up or boast about it, just took it for granted. Bone spurs didn't exist.



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