DAILY PROMPT – Tuesday, October 30

DAILY PROMPT – Pick a random word and do a Google image search on it. Check out the eleventh picture it brings up. Write about whatever that image brings to mind.

What with all the talk about hurricanes and tidal waves, I had actually done a search this morning to discover what the height of a tsunami wave was. Relax, it would not cover the Statue of Liberty … so all of yesterday viral photos were fakes. So my random word  was actually HEIGHT. And here is the photo it revealed …

HEIGHTS OF WORLD LEADERS

Height has a very interesting subject with me, since I have always been somewhat height deprived. My father’s family was hearty Germanic stock filled with statuesque men and women of 6+ feet in height. My mother’s Polish ancestors were another matter. While they fared better than the Seven Dwarfs; they were still looked down on by many.

So my height or lack of same was always in my genes.

So I was always about five foot six. Ok, make that five foot five and a half. Or currently, five foot five. So, I was taller than my mother who never reached five foot — close, but never there. And, while I tower above three of the pictured world leaders, I’m still shorter than Napoleon.

Many people have illusions about height. They think that good equals tall, and short is evil or conniving. That’s why many people feel Adolph Hitler was a short man.0 Wrong, he was actually 5’8″ or 5’9″ — though his WWII foe FDR topped him though at 6’2″. Abe Lincoln was actually our tallest president at 6’4″. Or shortest president was James Madison who was only 5’4″, but then he never topped 100 pounds either.

So, both of my brothers are taller than me, but neither one became a basketball star. And I’ve never hit my head on the hot air ducts in the basement. Also, I was never the shortest person in my grade or high school classes. I was always assured a place in the front row for class photos though.