A Dime Among the Pennies

Way back in Middle School, my science teacher felt badly about always giving me a hard time because of my height. He was a nice guy and his teasing good-natured.

One day he gave me the following quote, typed up and then mounted on green construction paper:

Oliver Wendell Holmes once attended a meeting in which he was the shortest man present. "Dr. Holmes," quipped a friend, "I should think you'd feel rather small among us big fellows." "I do," retorted Holmes, "I feel like a dime among a lot of pennies."

I had it laminated and still have it nearly twenty years later.