Today I learned that I am 5’10 ½” tall. I was aghast! For I have been 6’1 ½” tall for the nearly seven decades of my adult life. Let’s face it, height is a measure of manhood in our culture. How many men are there happy with the nickname “Tiny?”

In sixth and seventh grade, Don DeJesse, at 5’ 8,” was captain of the basketball, baseball and football teams, as well as kissing Patsy Carelli, prettiest girl in the class, whose apparatus was already screening relationship candidates. DeJesse would never get any taller, and it was common knowledge in the neighborhood that he was the first among us to seek counseling as an adult.

I, however, was 5’9” in the eighth grade and selected to carry an enormous gold crucifix on a staff at the front of our annual May Procession through the center of town, intimidating the Protestants. I was a leader. By ninth and 10th grade, I was my full height and center on the parish CYO basketball team. I crashed the boards. I got rebounds. I started the fast break. I was d’man.

My 6’1 ½” was continually a value to me. In my work life there was always a pregnant pause when I approached the microphone and adjusted it upward, an alert as tangible as a fire alarm - listen up, that gesture said, this is a big man with important things to say!

I have six sons, each my height or taller. Combined we were 536 inches of manhood. That’s a mountain of manhood. The Gallaghers are obviously a family going places, a family on the move.

Now my change in height, though long unacknowledged, was not indecipherable. My pants profile at Jos. A. Bank in the Promenade slipped quietly from 42 long, to 40, to 39. The clerk started offering me a chair while my wife rifled the sock counter like she was shopping for tomatoes. I was gradually “growing” to 5’10 ½”.

It’s no wonder. The second shock and surprise today was an X-ray showing a curve in my spine like the curve going up Center Street from the north side of the Fahy Bridge between the Union Hall and the cemetery. You know where I mean.

I’m not sure how much farther I have to grow. I choose to call what’s happening to me “growing.” There are no white flags in this family.

EJG