As an indicator, height is a poor one and I know because I’ve been lined up according to height often. This is due, in part, to the fact that parochial schools have a great number of processions and it carries over into other activities.

It got out of hand. We were lined up by height to go to mass, to receive our first communions, to become confirmed as soldiers of the Lord at confirmation, enroute to confession, and whenever a rare field trip happened. We were lined up to go to recess and come in from recess. But, really, I don’t think it was necessary to line up just to walk from the grade school to the cafeteria, which was in the high school across the parking lot.

I’m not suggesting our teachers were regimentarians, although they were. I think the practice simply became a habit and worth mentioning because habits can have results that take us unawares.

The shortest girl in our grammar school is, of course, still short. These many years later, she acts rather babyish, like somebody accustomed to going first. I’ve lost touch with the tallest girl in our grammar school but I hope she found great happiness. I was lucky to always land someplace in the middle. Unlike her, I was never last.