Lying about my height on my driver's license

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My Pennsylvania driver’s license contains one bold-faced lie, a tall tale as it were. 

It says I’m 5-foot-10. I’d need to stand on my tippy toes to reach 5’10.

I’m more like 5’7.

Why I chose to tell such a petty bureaucratic lie, I do not recall.

Maybe I thought a cop would be less likely to tangle with a 5’10 dude. Or maybe I thought the deception would be useful if I was ever ambitious to commit a crime.

It would have been more artful fib if I tried to convince the DMV I was actually a female. It’s not likely they’d have been eager to interrupt their mundane routines by asking me to pull down my pants and prove it.

Maybe I used to think I was 5’10 because I had high hair. I used to have a nice, thick head of hair, a good two-inch cushion up top.

Now, sadly, it’s becoming sparse. Sensing what’s coming, I’m trying to sneak in as many bald jokes in as I can before I become one.

I got a good nasty one off on a bald buddy a couple of weeks ago. He was telling me how his 8-year-old daughter nearly fell off a swinging bridge in the woods and he reached out and grabbed her arm to save her from a trip to the ER.

“I felt just like Harrison Ford in ‘Indiana Jones,’” he said.

I told him it was more like No-Hair-ison Ford.

My 16-year-old daughter is almost as tall as I am and that feels wholly unnatural. I always told her if she ever got as tall as I, I’d immediately resume growing.

I’ve read the average American male is 5’10, so no matter how hard I try I’m destined to be below average.

I felt acutely short all last night when I spotted taller men contemplating using my bald spot for an ash tray.

It was the “Taste The Good Life” charity fundraiser at DiSalvo’s Station right here in Latrobe. It’s a very swanky affair at Latrobe’s finest restaurant.

I can’t afford it — I’m, er, short on cash — but my friend Tom often invites me when one of his more deserving guests bails.

Tom’s a true patron. He enjoys reading my blog, buys my books (for himself and as gifts), occasionally clicks the blog “donate” button and springs for my ticket at lavish cigar events.

If you think that kind of tangible support makes him my favorite reader, you’re wrong.

My very favorite reader is …

You!

I had a great time, but much of the night felt like the “Land of the Giants,” if only the giants were all puffing fine cigars and sipping high-end liquor.

The men all seemed huge.

I’m noticing a trend that those born after me are becoming taller, which also may be a consequence of me growing shorter. Long-time exposure to gravity and loss of bone mass means after the age of 30 we all begin to shrink. Most men shrink an inch; women, two.

But as our time on earth grows shorter, the people with whom we share it are growing taller. We’re evolving.

I read that during the Civil War, the average American soldier was just 5’6. 

Makes me feel like I could have singlehandedly beat the Rebs at Gettysburg.

So we as a people have added four inches in height in just 150 years.

What’ll it mean if the trend accelerates? What if we on average grow another four inches in, say, the next 12 months.

Of course, we’ll need bigger clothes, bigger vehicles and more food to fuel each generation of fresh behemoths.

The pessimists will say the growth will lead to — more irony — shortages and global upheaval will lead to our downfall.

I say nonsense.

The doomsayers fail to acknowledge the obvious.

The human race is finally growing up!

Too bad the only realm it’s happened to me is on my stupid driver’s license.

Related …

Your photo ID needs more menace

Me by the numbers

The T-Shirt I inadvertently inspired

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It is audacious, I admit, but I believe a lot of the things I write belong on posters, coffee mugs and T-Shirts for inspirational purposes.

Things like:

Enjoy being human and enjoy human beings

Anytime you hear of anyone dying suddenly it ought to reinforce the need to always be living suddenly

And . . .

A mohawk is an eccentric haircut. A MoeHawk is an irrationally angry bird that inflicts cartoon violence on a CurlyHawk.

You know, stuff for the ages.

What happened this week is an example of being careful for what you wish. Because something I’d written is now on a T-Shirt.

And it’s being mass produced.

By mass produced, I mean there are eight of them. That may not seem like much, but given that all but three of them are size Triple XL, I think it qualifies. Either way, it’s a whole lot of fabric.

On the front are cool top-hat wearing skulls with cigars clenched between their ivories. It'd make a dandy prison tattoo.

On seven of them is written “MEMBER.” On the eighth, “PROSPECT.”

Mine is the latter.

On each is the initials for the phrase I now regret coining.

It is CSL. It stands for “Cigar Smoking Lout.”

It’s an offhand line I wrote in an offhand variety post in what can be considered an offhand career. In fact, my entire existence is so entirely offhand it’s surprising I’m physically capable of typing.

Yet, it has become legend.

I was writing (link below) about how I skipped a big cigar smoker night to stay in with my family and watch the “Survivor” finale.

Here’s the exact paragraph: 

“My friends think I spend too much time with my family. My family thinks I spend too much time with cigar-smoking louts. I’m at a point in my life where every decision I make is bound to make at least half of the people who know and love me think I’m a perfect jackass.”

Not bad. It’s funny.

But my cigar-smoking lout friends took offense. Louts?

My dictionary describes “lout” as an “awkward, stupid fellow; boor, oaf.”

They’re my friends, sure, but I defy anyone who sees us out smoking cigars and drinking hootch to paint a more accurate picture.

It ain’t no GQ photo shoot.

And that’s a big part of what I love about it.

The first song on Mark Knopfler’s wonderful new “Tracker” album sums it up exactly. It’s “Laughs & Jokes & Drinks & Smokes.”

Unless you’ve absorbed the song, the lyric might confuse. It’s describing an evening, not an action.

In fact, if anyone asks what I do on my nights out with the CSL it is “laugh and joke and drink and smoke.”

It’s a perfect night.

It’s just what we do. I’m sure you do something similar anytime you’re out with good friends.

I just never dreamed it would lead to something emblazoned on a white T-Shirt for posterity, or until I inadvertently drizzle some mustard down the front making the shirt unpresentable in public.

So now next time we go out for the monthly DiSalvo’s Station smoker it’s planned for us all to wear our CSL shirts.

People will notice. People will ask. We’ll explain. I’ll smile politely. I’ll be horrified by the attention. And I’ll reveal that mine says “PROSPECT” because the “MEMBERS” do not yet deem me worthy of the club I unwittingly had a hand in naming.

Or as Val, my ever-supportive wife, said, “It’ll be like you’re back in high school again and having to worry that the cool kids might beat you up.”

(That never happened, by the way. I WAS the cool kid).

And all the while I’ll be wishing I’d earned such sartorial renown for something more profound, more cerebral, more deft.

Something like . . .

If fans of the Grateful Dead are called Deadheads, what does that make those of us who revere Moby-Dick?

Put that on your T-Shirt and smoke it.

Related . . .

Random thoughts on Letterman, Survivor & being the weenie

Cigar store ambiance enhanced by breasts

World’s biggest ash

Random thoughts on Letterman, "Survivor" & my weenie ways

• When I heard there was a deadly brawl involving three Texas biker gangs I instinctively knew the man in the picture at least was safe.

• I’m happy David Letterman seems happy to be retiring. Last night’s adios Top Ten list was wonderful. I watched him when he was a morning show sensation way back in 1980. I’d never seen anything like it. And I was in college when he was revolutionary. We’d never miss it. He was as influential to our juvenile humor as “Mad” magazine had once been. The vintage clips he’d been playing the last month recall his brilliance. I think over the years Dave just got professionally fatigued at his inability to beat Jay in the ratings and it was like he stopped trying. I eventually became a solid Leno viewer for reasons that have nothing to do with perceived cool or fealty to the hip coastal critics. Jay made me laugh more.

• If those Letterman thoughts leave you thinking I’m a weenie, well, join the club. I was deemed “weenie” more times last night than the guy who drives the Oscar Meyer-mobile. Why? Last night, I skipped a big cigar smoker at DiSalvo’s Station in favor of staying in to watch the “Survivor” finale. I’ll bet I received 20 texts disparaging my taste, my intellect and my manhood. It was almost as bad as the time I ducked out on a drunken weekend in Athens, Ohio, to slink home to watch “The Muppet’s Most Wanted” movie with my family.

• My friends think I spend too much time with my family. My family thinks I spend too much time with cigar-smoking louts. I’m at a point in my life where every decision I make is bound to make at least half of the people who know and love me think I’m a perfect jackass. 

• I wonder if it bothers virtuoso banjo players that to most Americans the most accomplished banjo players in America are named Steve Martin and Kermit The Frog.

• I don’t know why I feel compelled to be honest with my buddies when I’m doing something I know will earn their disdain. None of them would have known if I’d have said I was skipping the monthly debauch to speak to the International Gay Bowlers Organization. At least I don’t think any of them would have known. Maybe some of them are secretly afraid to come out and publicly admit they bowl. 

• In fact, the IGBO is meeting in Pittsburgh Nov. 10-16 and I have sent them a proposal about addressing their group. I recently shelled out $250 to partner with Visit Pittsburgh, the city’s tourism bureau, to take advantage of the marketing muscle behind all the conventions that come to this popular destination. I attended an introductory gathering Tuesday and was very pleased by the warmth of the informative greeting. The people are great, plus now I have access to calendars and contacts of every convention coming to town. It promises to be very beneficial.

• Still, I’m having trouble believing I’ll ever be successful as a public speaker until my mustache makes up its mind what color it wants to be. Many men my age have what is known as a salt ’n’ pepper mustache. I do, too. But their’s look good because the salt and pepper is all mixed up in one shaker. Mine is salt on one side, pepper on the other — two shakers on opposite ends of the table. I have to think it’s very distracting for anyone trying to suss out what I have to say in a public forum.

• I’m doing a random list today, in part, because I need to get ready for tonight when again I’ll be Word Master for the Greensburg Rotary’s Ninth Annual Spelling Bee at Greensburg Salem Middle School. It’s a role I assumed for last year’s bee, which nearly ended in controversy when a student incorrectly spelled the word “Pennsylvania.” How does a Pennsylvanian misspell Pennsylvania? He forgets to start with “capital P.” Luckily, the judges deemed the word’s inclusion too sneaky and gave the kid another chance. But having a role — even a non-judging one — in a spelling bee is nerve-wracking. If you can’t make it to the school tonight, I advise you to check out the excellent 2006 movie, “Akeelah and the Bee.” It is to spelling bee movies what “Rocky” is to boxing flicks. You’ll love it.

• Other bona fide groups coming to Pittsburgh for conventions in the next few months include: the American Guild of Organists, the Barbershop Harmony Society, the American Massage Therapy Association, the National Association of Black Accountants, and The Amalgamated Association of Blonde Blind Bloggers.

• I made that last one up.

• So how was “Survivor?” It was outstanding. If everybody in America was as good as their jobs as host Jeff Probst is as his, the nation would be a juggernaut. Still, I like to reflect how the show is the exact same age as our oldest daughter, Josie, who will be 15 in September. The physical and cerebral changes in J-Ro are stunning. Yet, Jeff Probst hasn’t changed even a little bit. Neither have any of his lines.

• Wanna know what you’re playing for?

• Frontrunner for @8Days2Amish Tweet of the Month: “Too many people who mistakenly believe they have the world on a string realize too late what they’re actually holding is a lit fuse.”

• If I were less concerned about your time and how busy you are, I would include the following lines at the bottom of each and every post: Thank you. You taking the time to read and, I hope, enjoy my blog means the world me. I hope you’ll continue and refer it to friends whenever it’s worthy.

• I’ve had some people say I should do more of these round-ups because it would make blogging so much easier. But who said it ought to be easy? There’d be no point in blogging for free if you didn’t at least aspire to greatness every single time you sat down to type. Soothing mediocrity is our most addictive painkiller.

• Even if I never accrue a single speaking engagement through my Visit Pittsburgh partnership, I’ll guarantee you this: I’ll make back the $250 in free drinks and hors d’oeuvres in six months flat.

Related . . .

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