Love it or leap it

Love it or leap it

What is so rare as a day in February that's the 29th?

By KATHY FLANIGAN

of the Journal Sentinel staff

Tuesday, February 29, 2000

Grab a calendar and point your index finger toward the last block on the page. Stop at

Feb. 29. (If you must, sing that little song about "30 days hath September . . . ").

The day is there. Most likely it's not labeled "Leap Day." Forgotten among the more "traditional" holidays,
it isn't as whimsical as Groundhog Day; nor as historical as either Lincoln's (Feb. 12) or Washington's
birthday (Feb. 21); and it's not as glitzy as

Valentine's Day.

But Leap Day should be noted because it is a big deal. We'd tell you exactly why, but calculating
Leap Year/Leap Day and its effect on the Gregorian calendar is a complicated mathematical duty
better left to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Just know that adding this one extra day every four years
is a much better method than the system used by the Egyptians. Had that one continued, says one
leap-year source, we would be celebrating the Fourth of July in the middle of winter.

That's reason enough for us to leap in celebration of Feb. 29 with this collection of leap odds and ends.

Phrases That Leap to Mind

Quantum leap

Leap frog

Leap of faith

Flying leap

Leap ahead

Look before you leap

Creative leap

Leap in the dark

Leap of action

Leap to mind

Leaps and bounds

Leaping lizards!

Random leap

Lovers leap

`Leap' quotes

-- "Look before you leap."

a description of cheese,

-- Neil Armstrong's famous words

-- Leap Day occurs only during a leap year. Leap year occurs every four years, except for years ending in 00
and then, as in the case of this year, only if the year is divisible by 400.

-- This is the first Leap Day in a millennium year.

-- Prenatal newcomers have a one in 1,461 chance of being born on Feb. 29. An estimated 187,000 people in
the U.S. and 4.1 million people in the world are Leap Day babies.

-- "Gone With the Wind" won eight Oscars on this day at the 1940 Academy Awards.

-- The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago on this day in 1960.

Don't Fear the Leaper (Leap Day babies)

-- W.E.B. Du Bois, U.S. historian, educator and founder of the NAACP, born in 1868

-- Bandleader Jimmy Dorsey, born in 1904

-- Singer, actress, talk-show host and golf tournament benefactor Dinah Shore, born in 1916

-- Actor Dennis Farina, born in 1944

-- Actor Antonio Sabato Jr., born in 1972

Leap Into Romance

-- Long ago and far away -- OK, Scotland, 1228 -- women were allowed to propose to men in skirts --
OK, kilts -- only on Feb. 29. The tradition spread with the thinking that under English law, Leap Day -- so
called because it was ignored and leapt over, if you will - - had no recognition under English law and wasn't
governed by more traditional rules and mandates.

According to a Web site, www.gagirl.com, it also was thought that since the leap year day corrected the
discrepancy between the calendar year of 365 days and the time taken for the Earth to complete one orbit
of the sun, it was an opportunity for women to correct a tradition that was one-sided and unjust.

-- In 1949, Al Capp and the buxom bumpkins of his Li'l Abner cartoons celebrated a similar event on Nov. 19
and called it Sadie Hawkins Day, named for a spinster character. Sadie Hawkins Day still is celebrated in some
places only on Feb. 29.

Leap Throat

-- The Leap Year cocktail. The Webtender drink recipe Web site (www.webtender.com) says it is made with
orange gin, Grand Marnier, sweet vermouth and a squeeze of lemon. Truth be told, many people prefer beer
on Leap Day occasions because of the, er, hops.

It Had to Happen: Leap Fest!

Leap Day was a festival idea up for grabs. So the cities of Anthony, N.M., and Anthony, Texas, leapt on the idea
of hosting their own "Worldwide Leap Year Festival" complete with a giant birthday cake to serve all the members
of their Worldwide Leap Year Birthday Club.

The close-knit cities of the same name -- they share a border and a Chamber of Commerce -- began their
every-four-years celebration on Saturday with a hot-air balloon lift-off. They'll finish things off today with a
Leap Year birthday party and dinner.

Coincidentally, this is the fourth such celebration in Anthony. And for that, thank Mary Ann Brown, who presented
the idea to the chamber in 1988. Not so coincidentally, Brown herself is a leap year baby, having been born on
Feb. 29, 1932.

But she thinks there is more than one reason -- her birthday -- to celebrate.

"It is the day that everyone in the world has extra," Brown said in a phone interview

And that's a funny story, Brown said.

Nash's 48-year-old wife, Susan, is a leap year baby who joined the club in 1998. This year, she offered her husband
as entertainment -- for free. She also said she had an artist friend who could design a T- shirt for the birthday club.
He turned out to be famed '60s artist Peter Max.

"I didn't even know who Peter Max was," Brown said. "Now I do."