The True Story of My Big Head

A while back we were talking about big heads. It seems that quite a few members of the Ann Arbor blogosphere either have or have been accused of having large heads. At the time I promised to share my story in the future, and being a man of great honor, I now make good on that promise.

This is a story that you will hear if you spend much time with Christina or my best friend from childhood, Eric. They believe it as gospel, but tell an apocryphal version, so allow me to share the real story:

In Junior High I played football. I know, how impressive. In a small town Junior High, pretty much everybody gets a chance to play if he wants to. I was a lineman, usually center if you're curious. No real skills, but kind of pudgy.

Anyway, during the first week of practice, we had pads and helmets assigned. This was done in alphabetic order. We all lined up by last name and one at a time went from station to station where a leathery old coach would fit us with plastic armor and record a series of numbers.

It just so happens that my hat size is about 7 1/4. That isn't small, but not at all out of the ordinary. In fact, it's so common that it was the same hat size as the kid directly in front of me - a Pa__ name, where mine is a Pu__ name. Again, being a small town Junior High in rural Kansas, there wasn't a huge budget for athletic equipment. Yes, it was probably comparable to the budgets for art, music, and theater combined, but it still wasn't huge.

So this kid, B.P., got the last 7 1/4 and there wasn't anything that fit on my noggin without slipping around and covering my eyes. The only thing to do was to send off to the High School football team for a 7 1/4 helmet. This actually worked out quite well for me since the High Schoolers had better equipment and I got a white helmet so school colors weren't an issue.

Now if you ask Christina or Eric, they'll tell you that my head was so big that they had to send off to the HS, because Junior High kids just don't have heads as big as mine. Disregard what they say. I don't care that Eric's dad was one of the coaches, he is still wrong. My head is perfectly normal, only exceptional in its beauty and the quality of gray-matter it contains.

Next up, the story of the turtle that DID NOT attack my pre-pubescent manhood.