Twin Tiers Life Sunday 2

Twin Tiers Life Sunday 2/29/04
Look, it's Leap Day
Why we have an extra day - and what some of us would like to do with it
By RACHEL ADAMS
Star-Gazette
radams@stargazette.com

Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November.
All the rest have 31,
Excepting February alone,
Which hath but 28, in fine,
'Til leap year gives it 29.

-- Anonymous

Today is Leap Day, an "extra" day that only comes along once in a blue moon -- or, more accurately, once in a calendar year divisible by the number 4.

Feb. 29 is a chance for those rare Leap Day babies to finally celebrate another birthday, but wouldn't it be nice for the majority of us to take this bonus 24 hours as a chance to travel, relax and catch up with family?

The tradition of adding a day to every fourth year has endured for more than 2,000 years. In 46 B.C., Roman emperor Julius Caesar invented the Julian calendar. He conceived of the 12-month, 365-day year.

But ... the universe had other ideas. According to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, a "year" is the amount of time it takes the earth to revolve around the Sun. By that definition, a year is 365.24219 days long.

So the Julian calendar incorporated an extra quarter day, for a total of 365.25 days per year. Every fourth year, those quarter days added up to a Leap Day and kept the calendar in line with the seasons.

"Leap Day represents a balance between the rotation of the earth and how we keep track of time," says Raenell Dawn, designer of the Web site www.leapyearday.com.

Dawn, who proclaims herself "Her Royal Leapness," lives in Kaizer, Ore., and is an expert on Leap Year artifacts and trivia. She became interested in the calendar oddity because she is a Leap Day baby. Her site focuses on her charge, the Leap Day Project, which aims to bring more recognition to the often-overlooked -- and quite important -- holiday.

"If we didn't have an extra day every four years, Christmas would soon end up in the summer months," Dawn says.

Which is exactly what started to happen with Caesar's calendar. He took the actual length of the year -- 365.2419 days, in case you forgot -- and rounded it up to 365.25. That may not seem like a big difference, but by the late 1500's, the discrepancy started to add up. It became apparent that seasons and months were gradually becoming off-kilter.

Pope Gregory XIII came up with the Gregorian calendar in 1582, which remedied the problem by changing the formula for leap years. Instead of having one every four years, he stipulated that leap years should not occur on century years, unless they were divisible by 400.

So 2000 got a Leap Day, but, if you're still around for 2100, don't expect to see Feb. 29 on your calendar.

Pope Gregory's fix made the average length of a year 365.2425 days, a figure that still works today. Experts at the Royal Observatory speculate that eventually the calendar will have to be changed again, but not anytime soon. The difference works out to three days per 10,000 years.

"We can count on and depend on months being in the same season every year," Dawn says. "If we didn't have an extra day, it would screw everything up."

Maurice and Kathy McNett of Tioga, Pa., are certainly grateful for that extra day -- it's their wedding anniversary. The two were married on Leap Day, a date that Kathy jokes she chose so Maurice would never forget it.

"We like to tell people it's our seventh anniversary, but we've been married for 28 years," she says.

Dawn also embraces the uniqueness of her special day. She turns 44 years old today -- but she's throwing herself a party fit for an 11-year-old.

(See John Cleary's Neighbors column on Page 2C for local celebrants today.)

For all its novelty, though, a Leap Day birthday has its drawbacks.

Government computers don't recognize Feb. 29 as a day, so Dawn and other Leap Day babies have to change their birth dates on drivers' licenses, choosing either Feb. 28 or March 1.

But Dawn wouldn't trade her birthday for the world.

"The best part (of being a Leap Day baby) is, everyone has their way of being unique and different," she says. "Having a birthday that only shows up on the calendar every four years, that makes you different."