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