Leap Year Day – A day that happens every fourth year to keep our clocks on pace with the rotation of the Earth around the sun. This is also the day my Grandfather gladly told us to celebrate as it was his birthday.
My Grandpa was born in 1898 and had seen many things in this world of ours. True this is the year 2008 and no he is not 110 years old as he passed away in 1996 from Alzheimer’s. He was the adventurous one of his family. Some would call him the black sheep of the family but he was just a bit eccentric in his quiet way.
He enjoyed his daily beer and his pipe for the majority of his 98 years on this Earth. He was never without the lack of a desire of a good laugh. When you got to talk with him (when Grandma was distracted), you gleaned much wisdom from his travels around these United States seeing everything from the world transitioning from horse and buggy to cars, the development of the airplane, and space travel. So much wisdom was to be learned from him.
But the day to be remembered was Leap Year Day – his birthday. He would remind us every year that he wasn’t as old as the calendar said as his birthday was only every four years.
That was the case until 1997 when we got to look at his birth certificate. We should have seen this coming. All 3 of his children, his 3 in-law children and I forget how many of us grandchildren should have seen this coming. After all, my last name is fairly unique only because my Grandpa changed the t to a d on our last name because he didn’t like how the t looked.
What awaited our eyes on his birth certificate? He was born well into March.
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