February 28, 2024 • 12 mins
With help from "Leap Day Lady" Raenell Dawn, Dana Schwartz makes the case for making Leap Day a national holiday.
*
Very Special Episodes is a new podcast where we tell one incredible story each week. We're back with a full episode next Wednesday.
Hosted by Dana Schwartz, Zaron Burnett, Jason English
Written by Dave Roos
Produced by Josh Fisher
Editing and Sound Design by Josh Thane
Research and Fact-Checking by Austin Thompson and Dave Roos
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
Executive Producer is Jason English
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Originals. This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Happy Leap Day everyone, Jason English here, Happy Leapday Eve
if you're listening on Wednesday, Leap Day feels like the
kind of holiday that veryous special episodes should embrace. So
today we have a fun story about a woman who's
worked for decades to make her fellow Leaplings feel special
(00:38):
because they are special. And if we're fortunate enough to
still be doing this on Leap Day twenty twenty eight,
I promise you this.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We are going to plan a whole festival.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
It's going to be a big deal. Be great to
meet all of you in person.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Until then, all you Dana.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
The odds of being born on the twenty eighth of
February are about one in three hundred sixty five. The
odds of being born on the twenty ninth of February
are less than one in one thousand, four hundred sixty one.
That's because February twenty ninth, of course, is Leap Day,
(01:23):
that weird extra day in February that only exists once
every four years. Twenty twenty four is a leap year.
For most of us, February twenty ninth will pass unnoticed,
but for the roughly four million people worldwide who were
born on Leap Day, they've been counting the days to
(01:45):
February twenty ninth since twenty twenty. They have four years
worth of birthday parties to celebrate. They call themselves Leapers, Leaplings,
leap dudes, or leap chicks, people simultaneously cursed and blessed
with the rarest birthday on the calendar. First, because in
(02:08):
second grade, any mean kids who are also good at
math could tease them at recess saying we're eight, we
don't play with two year olds. And because every time
they go to the DMV to renew their driver's license,
the system tells them that their date of birth February
twenty ninth, is invalid. But Leap Day babies also insist
(02:31):
that they're blessed, blessed to be members of an exclusive
club with its own leaptastic lingo, blest to be born
on a day with true astronomical significance. It's the day
that literally keeps the seasons in sync, and blessed if
they're lucky to celebrate a second bar Mitzvah when they
(02:55):
turn fifty two slash thirteen, or a second Kinsinia when
they're sixty slash fifteen. This Leap Day, February twenty ninth,
nin twenty twenty four is a very special Leap Day
for one very special Leap Day baby. Because ray now Don,
(03:17):
known worldwide as the Leap Day Lady, has waited sixty
four years for her sweet sixteen. Welcome to very special
episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm your host Dana Schwartz,
and this is our Leap Day special. Ray now Down
(03:39):
was born on February twenty ninth, nineteen sixty. Raynell's two
younger sisters were also born in February.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
So my mom puts our names on the calendar, says Debbie.
On February sixth, says Cindy. On February twenty fifth, it
says Rayell. In the empty box next to the twenty eighth,
I thought it was born of the twenty ninth.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Where is the twenty ninth? It's not there.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
When Raynell asked why her real birthday wasn't on the calendar,
her mom replied, because you're special. But Rainell didn't feel
very special.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
When I was eight. On my eighth birthday.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Second or third grade, the teacher asked if anybody in
the class knew someone born on February twenty nine, and
I rose my head, excitedy and told her I was.
She clasped her hands together, stood in front of the
class and said, oh, you poor child.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
It wasn't until Raynell turned twenty, that's five in leap years,
that she felt anything but bummed about her special birthday.
She was riding home on a nearly empty city bus
when an elderly man got on board and sat next to.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Her, and I thought, that's fine, I'll take care of him, Oh,
you know whatever, I'd help him well.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
He asked me when.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
My birthday was, out of the blue, and I said
February twenty nine, leap day, and he just looked at me,
just in this Really, I can still picture his little
breako little face. He said, you are very special. And
I felt that more than I felt it from my parents.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Rainelle decided then in there to embrace her leapness and
seek out others who shared her exceptional dare I say
leaptacular birthday?
Speaker 5 (05:32):
And so in nineteen eighty eight, I planned and organized
to start this birthday club. And so I got myself
on a bunch of radio stations. I lived in Los
Angeles and so I was on the five top radio
stations live that morning and invited Leap Day Babies to
my home.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
For a Leap Day Baby birthday party. And it was
a Monday, a raining Monday.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Four Leap Day babies showed up and I got twenty
one responses on from the telephone.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
My phone number was four six ' four leap. That
was a really.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Exciting time meeting people in the flesh who were born
on the same day as me and talking with them
about their experiences because nobody else gets it.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
That was the start of the Honor Society of Leap
Year Day Babies. It's a global fellowship of people born
on a day that seventy five percent of the time
doesn't exist. Raynell's Leapday Birthday Club swept the globe, attracting
more than eleven thousand Leaplings from nearly every nation. Facebook
(06:40):
obviously was a game changer. Renell now calls herself the
Leapday Lady. She makes her own earrings and beaded bracelets
that say two twenty nine and Leap Baby. She signs
off her emails with Leapist regards, and Raynell has made
it her life's mission to raise leap Day awareness.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
We run into adults, not just children, but adults too
who are just oblivious to this extra day. And it's
because of how we were taught about that day. It
wasn't taught, it was mentioned.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
You know, that's a big difference.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
If you feel like your own leap Day literacy is lacking.
Here's a quick refresher. Leapier's are necessary because the regular
calendar year is three hundred and sixty five days, but
it takes the earth a little longer, roughly three hundred
and sixty five point two four to five days to
(07:44):
go around the sun. So if we didn't add an
extra day every four years, the months would slowly slip
out of sync with the seasons. Eventually July would feel
more like January. Leapier, it turns out, has been around
since forty six BC, when Julius Caesar added an extra
(08:07):
day every four years to his Julian calendar. The practice
continued with the Gregorian calendar, which came out in fifteen
eighty two and is still the calendar we use today.
Here's a fun fact. Technically, Leapier is not celebrated every
four years. Okay, it's celebrated almost every four years, but
(08:30):
there are some exceptions. Since the solar year is not
quite three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days exactly,
we need to skip a leap yer every few centuries.
Here's how it works, and bear with me. Century years
like eighteen hundred and nineteen hundred are not leap years
(08:51):
unless the year is also evenly divisible by four hundred.
That's why the year two thousand was a leap year.
But the year twenty one hundred will not be a
leap year, or twenty two hundred or twenty three hundred,
but yes, twenty four hundred will be. It's science, people.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
The whole point of leap day is to keep the
days in line with the seasons.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
That we experience here on this planet. So that's important.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
So I say February twenty nine is the most important
date on the calendar, not the most important day, the
most important date because it's the date that keeps all
the dates in line with the seasons.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
What really frustrates right now is that, despite its clear
critical importance, leap Day is not listed on any calendar. Sure,
February twenty ninth is there every four years, but it
doesn't say leap Day. In the little box. It doesn't
say anything.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Why doesn't it get ink?
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Groundhog getsing, Valentine's Day gets in, President's Day gets e.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Leap Day deserves ink bold ink.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Rainnell has written letters and called dozens of calendar companies,
but none have been swayed by her campaign, same with
the dictionary people who refuse to capitalize either Leap Year
or Leap Day. If Rainell has one message for the
non leaper world, it's that Leap Day isn't just special
(10:33):
for people born on February twenty ninth, It's for everyone.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Leap Day is everybody's extra day. It's not just our birthday.
It's not all about me after all. It's everyone's extra day.
And I say use it wisely. Do something for somebody else,
Do something for yourself. If you're the kind that does
things for everybody else. It's just every four years, go
take care of yourself, you know, whatever you get to choose.
(11:02):
It's not a holy day. It's not a government day.
It's a cultural day. It's a day for everybody that
lives on this planet who uses the Gregorian calendar any
even if you don't, that's all right. It's your extra day.
Do something good with it?
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Congress, mister President, are you listening? Couldn't we all use
an extra day to decompress, a random day every four
years to set aside twenty four hours for ourselves or
dedicated to someone else? What will it take to make
Leap Day a real holiday? This is a petition I
am ready to sign today. Until Leap Day is a
(11:42):
real holiday, Raynell John and millions of her fellow Leapers
will continue living by their strange quadrennial calendar, waiting patiently
through the non leap years and counting the days, all
one thousand, four hundred and sixty one of them, until
their next real birthday. And so on this Leap Day,
(12:05):
we want to wish Rain Dawn the Leap Day Lady,
a very special, very sweet sixteen Keep fighting the good
fight for Leapday awareness, and just think, only twenty more
years until you can legally drink.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Very special episodes made by some very special people. This
episode was written by Dave Ruse. Our producer is Josh Fisher.
Editing and sound design by Josh Dain, Original music by
Alise McCoy. Research in fact checking by Austin Thompson. Show
logo by Lucy Kintonia. Our hosts are Danish Wartz, Sarah
(12:44):
Burnett and me Jason English. I'm your executive producer and
we'll see you back here next Wednesday, Happy Leap Day, Everybody.
Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Originals. This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Happy Leap Day everyone, Jason English here, Happy Leapday Eve
if you're listening on Wednesday, Leap Day feels like the
kind of holiday that veryous special episodes should embrace. So
today we have a fun story about a woman who's
worked for decades to make her fellow Leaplings feel special
(00:38):
because they are special. And if we're fortunate enough to
still be doing this on Leap Day twenty twenty eight,
I promise you this.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
We are going to plan a whole festival.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
It's going to be a big deal. Be great to
meet all of you in person.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Until then, all you Dana.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
The odds of being born on the twenty eighth of
February are about one in three hundred sixty five. The
odds of being born on the twenty ninth of February
are less than one in one thousand, four hundred sixty one.
That's because February twenty ninth, of course, is Leap Day,
(01:23):
that weird extra day in February that only exists once
every four years. Twenty twenty four is a leap year.
For most of us, February twenty ninth will pass unnoticed,
but for the roughly four million people worldwide who were
born on Leap Day, they've been counting the days to
(01:45):
February twenty ninth since twenty twenty. They have four years
worth of birthday parties to celebrate. They call themselves Leapers, Leaplings,
leap dudes, or leap chicks, people simultaneously cursed and blessed
with the rarest birthday on the calendar. First, because in
(02:08):
second grade, any mean kids who are also good at
math could tease them at recess saying we're eight, we
don't play with two year olds. And because every time
they go to the DMV to renew their driver's license,
the system tells them that their date of birth February
twenty ninth, is invalid. But Leap Day babies also insist
(02:31):
that they're blessed, blessed to be members of an exclusive
club with its own leaptastic lingo, blest to be born
on a day with true astronomical significance. It's the day
that literally keeps the seasons in sync, and blessed if
they're lucky to celebrate a second bar Mitzvah when they
(02:55):
turn fifty two slash thirteen, or a second Kinsinia when
they're sixty slash fifteen. This Leap Day, February twenty ninth,
nin twenty twenty four is a very special Leap Day
for one very special Leap Day baby. Because ray now Don,
(03:17):
known worldwide as the Leap Day Lady, has waited sixty
four years for her sweet sixteen. Welcome to very special
episodes and iHeart original podcast. I'm your host Dana Schwartz,
and this is our Leap Day special. Ray now Down
(03:39):
was born on February twenty ninth, nineteen sixty. Raynell's two
younger sisters were also born in February.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
So my mom puts our names on the calendar, says Debbie.
On February sixth, says Cindy. On February twenty fifth, it
says Rayell. In the empty box next to the twenty eighth,
I thought it was born of the twenty ninth.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Where is the twenty ninth? It's not there.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
When Raynell asked why her real birthday wasn't on the calendar,
her mom replied, because you're special. But Rainell didn't feel
very special.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
When I was eight. On my eighth birthday.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Second or third grade, the teacher asked if anybody in
the class knew someone born on February twenty nine, and
I rose my head, excitedy and told her I was.
She clasped her hands together, stood in front of the
class and said, oh, you poor child.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
It wasn't until Raynell turned twenty, that's five in leap years,
that she felt anything but bummed about her special birthday.
She was riding home on a nearly empty city bus
when an elderly man got on board and sat next to.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Her, and I thought, that's fine, I'll take care of him, Oh,
you know whatever, I'd help him well.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
He asked me when.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
My birthday was, out of the blue, and I said
February twenty nine, leap day, and he just looked at me,
just in this Really, I can still picture his little
breako little face. He said, you are very special. And
I felt that more than I felt it from my parents.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Rainelle decided then in there to embrace her leapness and
seek out others who shared her exceptional dare I say
leaptacular birthday?
Speaker 5 (05:32):
And so in nineteen eighty eight, I planned and organized
to start this birthday club. And so I got myself
on a bunch of radio stations. I lived in Los
Angeles and so I was on the five top radio
stations live that morning and invited Leap Day Babies to
my home.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
For a Leap Day Baby birthday party. And it was
a Monday, a raining Monday.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Four Leap Day babies showed up and I got twenty
one responses on from the telephone.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
My phone number was four six ' four leap. That
was a really.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Exciting time meeting people in the flesh who were born
on the same day as me and talking with them
about their experiences because nobody else gets it.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
That was the start of the Honor Society of Leap
Year Day Babies. It's a global fellowship of people born
on a day that seventy five percent of the time
doesn't exist. Raynell's Leapday Birthday Club swept the globe, attracting
more than eleven thousand Leaplings from nearly every nation. Facebook
(06:40):
obviously was a game changer. Renell now calls herself the
Leapday Lady. She makes her own earrings and beaded bracelets
that say two twenty nine and Leap Baby. She signs
off her emails with Leapist regards, and Raynell has made
it her life's mission to raise leap Day awareness.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
We run into adults, not just children, but adults too
who are just oblivious to this extra day. And it's
because of how we were taught about that day. It
wasn't taught, it was mentioned.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
You know, that's a big difference.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
If you feel like your own leap Day literacy is lacking.
Here's a quick refresher. Leapier's are necessary because the regular
calendar year is three hundred and sixty five days, but
it takes the earth a little longer, roughly three hundred
and sixty five point two four to five days to
(07:44):
go around the sun. So if we didn't add an
extra day every four years, the months would slowly slip
out of sync with the seasons. Eventually July would feel
more like January. Leapier, it turns out, has been around
since forty six BC, when Julius Caesar added an extra
(08:07):
day every four years to his Julian calendar. The practice
continued with the Gregorian calendar, which came out in fifteen
eighty two and is still the calendar we use today.
Here's a fun fact. Technically, Leapier is not celebrated every
four years. Okay, it's celebrated almost every four years, but
(08:30):
there are some exceptions. Since the solar year is not
quite three hundred and sixty five and a quarter days exactly,
we need to skip a leap yer every few centuries.
Here's how it works, and bear with me. Century years
like eighteen hundred and nineteen hundred are not leap years
(08:51):
unless the year is also evenly divisible by four hundred.
That's why the year two thousand was a leap year.
But the year twenty one hundred will not be a
leap year, or twenty two hundred or twenty three hundred,
but yes, twenty four hundred will be. It's science, people.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
The whole point of leap day is to keep the
days in line with the seasons.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
That we experience here on this planet. So that's important.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
So I say February twenty nine is the most important
date on the calendar, not the most important day, the
most important date because it's the date that keeps all
the dates in line with the seasons.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
What really frustrates right now is that, despite its clear
critical importance, leap Day is not listed on any calendar. Sure,
February twenty ninth is there every four years, but it
doesn't say leap Day. In the little box. It doesn't
say anything.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Why doesn't it get ink?
Speaker 5 (10:00):
Groundhog getsing, Valentine's Day gets in, President's Day gets e.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Leap Day deserves ink bold ink.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Rainnell has written letters and called dozens of calendar companies,
but none have been swayed by her campaign, same with
the dictionary people who refuse to capitalize either Leap Year
or Leap Day. If Rainell has one message for the
non leaper world, it's that Leap Day isn't just special
(10:33):
for people born on February twenty ninth, It's for everyone.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Leap Day is everybody's extra day. It's not just our birthday.
It's not all about me after all. It's everyone's extra day.
And I say use it wisely. Do something for somebody else,
Do something for yourself. If you're the kind that does
things for everybody else. It's just every four years, go
take care of yourself, you know, whatever you get to choose.
(11:02):
It's not a holy day. It's not a government day.
It's a cultural day. It's a day for everybody that
lives on this planet who uses the Gregorian calendar any
even if you don't, that's all right. It's your extra day.
Do something good with it?
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Congress, mister President, are you listening? Couldn't we all use
an extra day to decompress, a random day every four
years to set aside twenty four hours for ourselves or
dedicated to someone else? What will it take to make
Leap Day a real holiday? This is a petition I
am ready to sign today. Until Leap Day is a
(11:42):
real holiday, Raynell John and millions of her fellow Leapers
will continue living by their strange quadrennial calendar, waiting patiently
through the non leap years and counting the days, all
one thousand, four hundred and sixty one of them, until
their next real birthday. And so on this Leap Day,
(12:05):
we want to wish Rain Dawn the Leap Day Lady,
a very special, very sweet sixteen Keep fighting the good
fight for Leapday awareness, and just think, only twenty more
years until you can legally drink.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Very special episodes made by some very special people. This
episode was written by Dave Ruse. Our producer is Josh Fisher.
Editing and sound design by Josh Dain, Original music by
Alise McCoy. Research in fact checking by Austin Thompson. Show
logo by Lucy Kintonia. Our hosts are Danish Wartz, Sarah
(12:44):
Burnett and me Jason English. I'm your executive producer and
we'll see you back here next Wednesday, Happy Leap Day, Everybody.
Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Jason English
Dana Schwartz
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