Heights of Holyoke offer different outlooks

People come in all sizes, and their perspectives can vary widely. The way a person views the world is based on many things, and one of those just may be the height from which it’s viewed.

Fiances Kyle Carper and Erin Vieselmeyer know what it’s like to be tall. Both are over 6 feet in height, and their experiences in life differ from Aaron Johnson’s, who is just under 5 feet tall. Comparing and contrasting how their heights have shaped their lives can provide insight into another perspective.

Carper and Vieselmeyer point to height as helpful in sports

Carper and Vieselmeyer graduated from HHS in 2010 and 2013 respectively, and they both played basketball in college.

Vieselmeyer said she was about average in height until she grew 6-7 inches going into her sophomore year of high school and at least another inch in college to reach her current height of 6 feet, 1 inch.

Carper, on the other hand, said he was probably always the tallest in his classes throughout school, reaching 6 feet, 3 inches by the end of high school.

Vieselmeyer said people often assume she’s an athlete, asking her if she plays volleyball or basketball. Then people generally follow up those questions by asking how tall her parents are.

Though Vieselmeyer said being tall generally gave her an advantage in sports, she discovered the hard way that not every sport or activity counts height as an advantage.

“Rollerblading is really hard,” she said, citing the higher center of gravity tall people have as well as the fact that rollerblades add a couple of inches to a person’s height.

She recalled one incident when she was wearing rollerblades while taking Tupperware containers back to a friend’s house.

“There were cracks on the sidewalk and the grass wasn’t close enough to save me,” she said, adding that although she dropped the containers when she fell, they were eventually returned to their rightful owner.

Vieselmeyer said she has hit her head on her share of cupboards, and once she even got a concussion when she bumped her head on the side of a slide at a pool the summer before her senior year in college.

Both Carper and Vieselmeyer agree that their height also has advantages when it comes to reaching things on a high shelf or something similar.

“You don’t have to own a stool anymore for the most part,” Carper said.

“You become the ladder for your household,” Vieselmeyer added.

Carper said that in some ways he felt small when playing basketball in college, where many people he played against were over 6 feet, 6 inches tall, and some reached the 7-foot mark.

In fact, his roommate in college was 6 feet, 8 inches tall.

“I was the short one whenever I went anywhere with him,” Carper recalled, adding that playing basketball in college put his height in perspective.

Vieselmeyer said she was one of the tallest players on her team in college, but she had to adapt to the increased speed of the game over what she was used to in high school. She said she had to learn how to accommodate her height with the increased agility the college-level game demanded.

Carper said his height means he has a long reach, which he said can be really useful when fixing equipment on the farm.

Both Carper and Vieselmeyer said getting clothes that fit when growing up was a bit of a drawback.

Carper said it was difficult for him to find shirts that fit right, especially when ordering shirts for sports at school, where he found his shoulders were too broad for the large size and he was too thin for the extra-large size.

Vieselmeyer said she had to shop at certain stores to find jeans that were long enough and that many of the pants she had were worn like capris.

Carper remembers another drawback occurring when people sat behind him in a car, meaning his legs were more cramped. He said this could be especially bad when he had growing pains.

To combat this, Carper began to sit in the middle of the back seat so he could stretch his legs out to the car’s center console.

“My parents always had to drive with my feet in their faces,” he said with a laugh.

Johnson shares a different perspective

Johnson has a different view on height, and it’s from a little closer to the ground than Carper’s or Vieselmeyer’s.

Johnson is technically 4 feet, 10 and 3/4 inches tall, but she rounds up to 4 feet, 11 inches.

“It’s done wonders for my pro basketball career,” she joked.

Johnson, who moved to Holyoke this summer, said she was always the shortest in her class growing up, staying between 4 feet, 5 inches and 4 feet, 7 inches tall until she was about 13 years old.

“It’s taught me to be able to laugh at myself in general,” she said, adding that she learned how to do that at a young age. “Life’s a lot more fun when you don’t take yourself too seriously,” she said.

She said there are some drawbacks to her height, noting that it is always the first thing people notice about her. She went on to point out that she feels people may overlook her other characteristics until they get to know her.

Similar to Carper and Vieselmeyer, Johnson said finding clothes that fit has always been a challenge for her. Shoes especially are difficult to find in the correct size.

She said she remembers often buying junior-sized clothes at stores because they fit her a lot better than the selections from the adult women’s sections in stores.

Growing up, she participated in ballet and swimming, both activities that don’t require a lot of height to pursue.

There are other advantages, too, Johnson said. “I always got to be in the front row in class pictures in school,” she said. She also added that when she was a child, she was very good at hide-and-seek. She said many hiding places that weren’t available to her taller friends were perfect for her and allowed her to win numerous times.

But for this animal lover, perhaps the biggest advantage to her height has to do with her pets.

“I don’t have to reach as far to pet my cats,” she said with a grin.