A Leap of Faith

I was always suspicious that the concept of leap year was a mistake on somebody's part. Let's start with the Egyptians who brought us the 365 day solar calendar as far back as man can remember anything. Technically our planet's jaunt around the sun is actually 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds, so they were pretty dang close. And whose to argue with the Egyptians?  Julius Caesar that's who. His astronomer pointed out the extra six hours and advised adding an extra day to the shortest month of the year. Voila! The leap year. This construct seemed to work for about 1600 years until Pope Gregory noticed that Easter was drifting into summer. Not a happy camper.

Turns out you can't round up that five hours and forty-eight minutes without consequences, and Gregory wasn't Pope for nothing.  He found his own astronomer to fix the hitch in that giddy up by decreasing the frequency of leap years. Plus he erased ten days. Yep, Romans who went to sleep on October 5 back in 1582, woke up 8 or so hours later on October 15 which must have been somewhat confusing for those not paying attention to the town crier.

Most of Roman Catholic Europe went along with the idea, but the Brits were having none of it, and America was on the same page until 1752 when the now eleven day lop was finally self-imposed. Suddenly George Washington's birthday leapt from February 11 to February 22 which means our current Presidents Day should have been closer to Lincoln's birthday which is February 12. Abe was robbed.

Are you still with me?
How did I get this far in life not knowing any of this?

Here I must thank Ben Guarino who wrote a great article about leap year things in The Washington Post this week including the newest proposal- the Hanky-Henke Permanent Calendar which would favor consistency over accuracy.  Whoops, I misread that. It's actually called the Hanke-Henry calendar, but I think hinky is a better name in general as hinky definitely defines the DC ROCKS calendar which will be amended later this weekend.

In the meantime two bust out shows happen this Friday: the Airport 77s at Slash Run and a rockabilly meltdown with Rock-A- Sonics and more at the Takoma VFW.

Also on Friday we have Kill Lincoln at the Pie Shop and the Allman Others Band at Hill Country.

February 29th, Anno Domini 2020, look for Jumpin Jupiter leaping around at the Rhodeside Grill, and Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Bomb tearing up Slash Run.


(If Julius C. and Pope Greg were still around, they'd make it four Fridays and two Saturdays so no one would have to choose between gigs.)