I can add a lot of text here

and more text

and more text

and more text

and more

and more

and more

and more

and notice how the table in the column to the left stays at the top, even though my text keeps going down the page.

I am able to keep that content at the top by adding the attribute <td valign="top">
to the <td> tag. Without this attribute, the content would automatically center.