Do You Know a Leaper?

No, not a Leper, although there are fewer and fewer people termed 'leper' with the availability of today's medical treatments. A Leaper is a person born on February 29th.

Today's local paper had a feature story on a woman who will be having a baby, by C-section. She has chosen to have the birth take place tomorrow, Leap Day. I guess that means that once every 4 years her child with have a very large birthday party. Most Leapers celebrate their other birthdays on February 28th.

Interesting facts for individuals born on February 29th.
1) Most life insurance companies computers cannot accept a birthdate of February 29th. Leapers have to put their application birthdate as March 1st.

2) There is no excuse for not knowing when a U.S. Presidential election is to be held because they are always held in Leap Years.

3) Signing a one year contract on February 29th means that it expires when, February 28th or March 1st of the following year?

4) There is an Irish tradition that says if a man receives a proposal of marriage on February 29th, he must accept it.

I titled this blog entry, Do You Know a Leaper. While I have 6 close family members with February birthdays, I personally do not know a Leaper. Here are a few famous people who were born on February 29th.

• 1468 – Pope Paul III (d. 1549)
• 1792 – Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer (William Tell, The Barber of Seville) (d. 1868)
• 1896 – Morarji Desai, former Indian prime minister (d. 1995)
• 1916 – Dinah Shore, American singer (d. 1994)
• 1924 – Al Rosen, American baseball player
• 1924 – Carlos Humberto Romero, former president of El Salvador
• 1960 – Anthony (Tony) Robbins, American motivational speaker

If you are lucky enough, or unlucky enough as is thought in Scotland, to be born on February 29th, I hope you have a very Happy Birthday tomorrow.