Comments on: Meanwhile, what’s Barron Trump been doing?

By: kzen

kzen — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 13:02:52 +0000

I had a growth spurt of nearly 11 inches in one year, so I have some empathy for Barron.

By: AesopFan

AesopFan — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 03:25:41 +0000

Well, as I like to say, I am not over-weight, I am under-tall.

By: Rufus T. Firefly

Rufus T. Firefly — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 00:17:10 +0000

Griffin,

There was an Irish kid in my neighborhood who seemed to be about six foot and 180 lbs. in 4th grade. He dominated all the organized sports throughout grade school. Freshman year of high school my team went to his high school to play his team. I was stunned that he rode the bench and played the position of punter. All the rest of us had growth spurts and he was still the same size.

By: Rufus T. Firefly

Rufus T. Firefly — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 00:14:17 +0000

Fractal Rabbit,

That’s crazy!

The guys I knew who grew when they were older were often great athletes because when they were shorter they had to develop skills to get picked to play. I think Michael Jordan had a late growth spurt.

By: Richard Saunders

Richard Saunders — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 23:14:26 +0000

I have the great good fortune to live and work in Beverly Hills, where the most beautiful women in the world come to break into entertainment, television, or modeling. While they are waiting for their big break, taking acting classes, going to auditions, working out, and eating (some are known to eat even as often as once a week!), they work as secretaries, production assistants, receptionists, and the like, so I see a lot of them in my and other office buildings. They are very tall, and the interesting thing is, tall girls and young women of my generation wore flats to minimize their height, while these young women frequently wear the highest of high heels. Sometimes the heels are so high they have to be very careful getting up and down the lobby stairs. So now height in women is no longer to be minimized, but instead is emphasized. When did that change take place?

I realized it’s display (display in a sex always decreases or increases depending on the availability of members of the opposite sex — compare the long dresses of women, even prostitutes, on the western frontier where there was an overabundance of men, to the flapper dresses of the post-WWI “Roaring Twenties.”

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 11:01:05 +0000

I retired to west Michigan, Dutch country. I was used to being the tallest guy in the room, even with a lot of people, at 6’2″ Now….not at all Even older guys, maybe a dozen or more at church or other places are taller, and not scrawny. Big shoulders and chest.
Reminds me of a couple of lines from a piece about Dunkirk. One of the boats was a Dutch fishing boat with “mighty bunks for mighty men”. Never figured that out until now.
In Fehrenbach’s “This Kind of War” (bang up history of the Korean War and musing about the military in a liberal society) is a picture of the Gloucestershire Regiment marching to their POE. Alongside the four files stretching back out of sight are the officers, one every ten ranks or so. All taller than all of the enlisted men.
Been said it wasn’t until the Fifties that the classes in Europe had the same height.
Was in Spain in 73, and 97 and 99. The difference in size among the young mean was notable. Three or four inches taller in my later visits, it seemed.

By: T J

T J — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 05:18:16 +0000

Zack writes: “Former Yugoslavian countries have some of the tallest people.” Both the Dinaric Alps (Western Yugoslavia…but Croatia today), and the Dutch have the tallest people in the world.

I’m 6’4” and like tall, Amazon tall women, so I keep abreast of these things.

Kate notes “ He will be able to afford to fly first class and drive big cars, so no worries.” But even Porsche’s and Ferrari’s (eg, Tom Sellicks in the TV ‘80s), are too small for this sporty late middle aged man. Sad.

By: Fractal Rabbit

Fractal Rabbit — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 02:56:29 +0000

Neo,

My father’s growth pattern was nearly identical to mine, only one inch taller: 5’3” at graduation and 6’4” when he stopped. He was in the US Navy (PBR: Patrol Boat River In Viet Nam) for most of that growing period and claims it was pretty tough to be constantly growing out of uniforms.

By: neo

neo — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 02:38:17 +0000

Fractal Rabbit:

Interesting. There was a boy in my high school who was about that size on graduating, although not quite as thin. I saw him a few years later, after college, and he was at least 6 feet tall. So definitely, some boys don’t grow till after high school. Girls almost never do. I was one of the tallest girls in the class in grade school, but I reached my full height of 5’4″ at around 10 or 11 years of age and never grew again. At the end of junior high, I was stunned to discover I was just of average height.

By: Fractal Rabbit

Fractal Rabbit — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 01:40:42 +0000

I was 5′ 2″ when I graduated high school at 17 years old (And I weighed 85 lbs!). By the time I was 19, I had finished most of a growth spurt and was 6’2″. I eventually stopped at 6’3′ by 21 and I was 180 lbs. (I’m 45 now and weigh the same).

My wife, who is German (fresh off the boat as they say, back in the day anyway), was 5’11” by her freshman year of high school and that was the end of her growing. But she had always been the tallest girl in her clas until then and was often taller than the boys in her younger grades.

Our children, who are twins (a boy and girl) are 11 and both are average height, if slightly short. Both are slender like my wife and I.

My daughter lives and breathes soccer and prefers to play the goalkeeper position. She’s pretty good too. Lightning reflexes! She’s made some crazy saves. I’m somewhat jealous of her natural athletic prowess at times. She is, however, quite anxious that she won’t be as tall as her mother and won’t continue to play her favorite position competitively.