Leap Year

Well pholks, what did you do with your extra day last week?

Try hard as I could, I couldn't come up with any parties, potluck dinners, ice cream and cake pig outs or even a happy hour for Friday, Feb. 29.

I wasn't able to put together a Leap Year golf outing with my buddies, 'cause I had to work and so did most of them. I didn't expect any local parades or big dinners or anything but shucks, there should have been something. I didn't get one single Happy Leap Year card, but that's understandable since I didn't send any out four years ago. And have any of you ever tried to find a Leap Year card with just the right message? Not an easy task.

I really did try to do something special for the extra day, like putting on my very favorite pair of socks, red and black striped underwear, a bright shirt with some leaping frogs and a golf cap. I had to take the cap off in the office when four people asked if I was going to leave early and play a round of golf. It was easier to just remove the cap rather than try and explain why I was wearing it in the first place. I knew they wouldn't notice the socks and shorts and not one person connected the frogs to the Leap Year idea.

Maybe it's just me, but are we, as Californians, getting so jaded that we look at an extra 24 hours every four years as a non-event.

A bit of research shows that some places in Oklahoma, Texas and a couple of other states have held Leap Year events which basically are birthday parties for Leapers (those born Feb. 29) with a parade or two thrown in.
I wasn't able to find anybody who had planned to travel out of county or even just of state this last week to attend any such event but there could have been some pholks I don't know about that might have jetted off for the big day.

There are traditions, of course, dating to the 5th Century in Ireland when St. Bridget reportedly complained to St. Patrick about women having to wait for men to propose. Apparently, she nagged poor old Pat so much he finally relented and declared Feb. 29 for females to have the right to ask for a guy's hand in marriage.

According to some researchers, who apparently had little else to do, Scotland's Queen Margaret declared in 1288 that on Feb. 29, women had the right to propose to her man of choice. Guys who refused reportedly were faced with a fine in the form of a kiss, a silk dress or a pair of gloves to be given to the rejected woman. I don't know pholks, a kiss seems like the cheapest way out, but then one wonders what the gals who had to rely on such extortion looked like.

We in America observe Sadie Hawkins Day when women are encouraged, or should I say allowed, to snare the most eligible bachelors. This is, of course, based on the cartoon strip “Li'l Abner” where Hekzebiah Hawkins, a prominent Dogpatch resident, wanted his daughter, Sadie, known as “the homeliest gal in the hills” married off to avoid her living the rest of her life at home. He set up a Sadie Hawkins Day foot race in which unmarried girls chased area bachelors. In the comic strip, the event was in November but in reality became a Leap Year event across the country.

Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera “The Pirates of Penzance” centers on the hero, Frederic, who apprenticeship binds him until his 21st birthday, which falls on Feb. 29, meaning he will be bound until he is well over 80 years.
I guess the upshot of this whole thing is that this Feb. 29 was just another Friday which would have come along any way. Maybe if there was a way to add an extra Friday and drop a Monday we could have had reason to celebrate. The next Friday, Feb. 29 won't come around for quite some time and when it does, I likely will not be around -- or know the difference. Pholks will just have to say “TGIFF-two-nine” without me.

Miles can be reached at mshuper@valleyvoicenewspaper.com