George Bell was 7 feet 8 inches tall. He was so tall that strangers were constantly coming up to him to take pictures and ask the same dumbstruck question: “How tall are you?”; that he learned early on to request two beds end-to-end when he made hotel reservations; that children would rush outside after church, needing to see how the quiet colossus they’d been staring at in the pews would manage to get into his regular-size car. (Bell fully extended the driver’s seat, with its back down, so that it became more of a stool—and sat with his knees squished…
