Leaps and Bounds

Dinah Shore was a leapling. I hope she has a piece of birthday cake, wherever she may be today (she passed in 1994).

Yes, Dinah was one of those folks born on Leap Day.

As you probably know (because you're smart), each year we have an excess of approximately six hours, so every four years we add a day to compensate so the seasons don't go all cattywampas. (Yes, that's the technical term.)

However...this doesn't quite get the job done, so on certain years ending in "00," we don't leap at all. If you're still around in the year 2100, you'll see what I'm talking about.

According to Guinness (the record book, not the brewer), there was only one recorded family with three consecutive generations of Leap Babies -- a British family by the name of Keogh (1940, 1964 and 1996). Meanwhile the Henrikson family of Norway holds the record for most number of children (three) with a Leap Day birthday (1960, 1964, 1968).

Thanks to our Irish friends, Leap Day, as you probably also know, carries a tradition whereby the woman can ask the man to marry her. According to legend, this came about thanks to St. Brigid, who struck the deal with St. Patrick.

Apparently, the Irish weren't the only ones to have this idea (or, more likely, it was stolen from them much the way their land was back in the day). Named "Bachelor's Day," the guy was expected to pay up if he refused a woman's hand in marriage. Society's elite got in on the gag by saying if a woman was turned down on Leap Day, she could expect to receive a dozen pair of gloves from the guilty party. It's theorized this was to cover the hands of shame that weren't wearing the coveted wedding band.

If you've made it this far, as my TV aerobics instructor says, hang on, because you'll make it to the end.

The Scots, ever the upbeat bunch, considered being born on this day bad luck. The Greeks think the whole year is unlucky for weddings, with Leap Day being the unluckiest. And I'd say St. Oswald was trying to steal the show by dying on this day in 992 and making it his saint's day, but February 29th wasn't a Leap Day thing at that point.

I hope you've enjoyed this little romp through Leap Day trivia. And the best part is...you can be (pretty) sure the topic won't come up here again for another four years!

Yay!