No. I played the tuba.

I know. In Indiana, a six-foot-nine boy who doesn't play basketball is something people need explained to them, so here goes. I tried out in eighth grade. The coach watched me dribble for one afternoon, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, very kindly, "Son, have you thought about band?" The band director had. A sousaphone weighs a lot and has to be carried around a football field by somebody, and he'd had his eye on me since sixth grade.

I marched with a sousaphone all through high school and played tuba in college while I studied pharmacy. I loved every minute. I can touch the rim if I jump, which I do about once a year to make my nephews happy. That's the extent of my career.

Six feet nine inches. In socks. In the morning I'm a hair taller, because everybody's spine settles a little during the day, and by bedtime I'm back to six-nine.

The follow-up question is always "Are you sure?" Yes. I've been measured by a lot of nurses. The other follow-up is "You look seven feet." People add about three inches to me. I take it as a compliment.

Hello, by the way. I'm 39, and I'm a pharmacist at a drugstore on the north side of Indianapolis. Every day, somewhere between the counter and the drive-up window, someone asks me one of the questions on this page. I don't mind. But it occurred to me that if I wrote down the answers, we could get through them quicker and talk about something else. Like whether you're taking that with food.

This page is tall and skinny on purpose. The ruler on the left goes from the top of a basketball hoop down to the floor. Read it standing up.

A standard American door is six feet eight inches tall. I am six feet nine. You can do the arithmetic. My forehead already has.

I duck now without thinking about it, the way you'd blink. But some doors have made an impression over the years, and they deserve recognition. I present:

THE DOOR HALL OF FAME

Inducted 1975: The basement door at my grandmother's house. About six foot two. Taught me to duck by age fifteen. Undefeated for three summers.

Inducted 1985: A cabin door at a state park in Brown County, where we went for my sister's graduation. It got me on the way in and on the way out, the same evening. That takes talent.

Inducted 1988: The doorway to the stockroom at my first pharmacy job. I met it twice a shift for four years. We came to an understanding. The understanding was a strip of foam rubber my manager taped across the top.

Inducted 1997: The cabin of a sailboat on Lake Michigan. Not technically a door. Still counts.

Lifetime Achievement: Every ceiling fan in every house I've ever visited. You know who you are.

Best Door Ever: The front door of the house Melody and I bought in 1995. It's eight feet tall. I walked through it without ducking, stopped, turned around, and told the real estate agent we'd take the house. I hadn't seen the kitchen yet. The kitchen is fine.

I get this one at least twice a week, always with a big smile, and I always smile back, because the person asking thinks they're the first. So, as a public service, here is the official forecast.

Not at all. I like this one best of all.

At the grocery store on Saturdays I average three reaches. I have reached cereal, cake mix, paper towels, the big bag of dog food somebody stacked where no one could get it, and once, at a pet store, a kitten who had climbed to the top of the cat tree and wanted to come down but didn't know how to say so. Nobody ever asks me to do anything at the grocery except help. It's a nice feeling.

At home, Melody keeps the things she wants me to find on the top shelf, and the things she doesn't want me to find on the bottom one. I found this out after nine years of marriage, when I dropped a pen.

Melody is five feet four. That's seventeen inches between us. People ask how we dance. Fine, thank you. I just get a lot of hair in my chin. At our wedding in 1990 the photographer stood her on a step for every picture, and in the one where he forgot, all you can see of her is the veil and a hand on my elbow. It's our favorite.

I was six feet tall in seventh grade, so I want to say a few things here without any jokes.

To the tall kids:

• Stand up straight. Slouching won't make you shorter. It'll just make your back hurt, and it tells people you're sorry about something you have no reason to be sorry about.
• You don't have to play basketball. You can if you want to. Play it because you love it, not because people expect it. Find the thing you love, whether it's a ball or a tuba or a chemistry set.
• People are going to say things about your height for the rest of your life. Almost all of them mean it kindly. Have a friendly answer ready and it gets easy.
• Be gentle. Big people learn early that they have to be careful, with little kids, with puppies, with other people's feelings. It's a good thing to be known for.
• Duck.

To their parents:

• Don't let anybody pick your child's sport for them, including you.
• Buy shoes that fit, even when it hurts, and even when you know they'll be too small by spring. Feet matter.
• If your child's growing fast and has aches or questions, talk to your doctor. That's what we pharmacists tell everybody, and we mean it.
• If your daughter is tall, tell her she's exactly the right height. Tell her often. Tell your son, too.
• Keep marking the doorframe. Someday, they'll pass it.

Carefully. My inseam is thirty-seven inches, which is just over three feet, which is longer than most store racks go. The big-and-tall stores always seem to have plenty of the "big" and a little bit of the "tall." So I order from catalogs, by phone, and I read the inseam number back to the operator twice.

When I was sixteen my mother let down the hem on every pair of pants I owned, and you could see a pale line around the bottom of each leg, like a bathtub ring. I wore them to school anyway. Nobody said a word. They were all looking at my head.

Like a lawn chair folded up in a closet. We fly to see Melody's folks twice a year, and I've learned three things:

1. Ask nicely at the gate for an exit row. It works about half the time. Gate agents have a hard job and a kind word goes a long way.
2. Aisle seat, always. My right leg spends most of the flight in the aisle, and I've gotten good at pulling it in when the cart comes.
3. Say hello to the person in front of you before takeoff, and ask them, as a favor, to warn you before they lean back. Nine times out of ten they're happy to. The tenth time, I think about the tuba and wait it out.

Fifteen. Finding a fifteen in a store is like finding a parking space at the State Fair. They exist, but you have to know somebody. Mine come from the same catalog as my pants, two pairs at a time, and when the box comes, the mail carrier asks if I ordered a canoe.

My nephews, who are six and eight, like to put both feet in one of my shoes and walk across the living room. There's still room. I've told them that someday they'll fill one of those shoes by themselves. They think that's the best news they've ever heard.