March of Time

Hello World, Happy March! I expect that not everybody will shed a tear to see the tail-end of February, and I doubt we'll be seeing people lining up to start its fan club, I dare say - especially in those locales hit with extreme weather conditions from blizzards to earthquakes, to mud slides, tornadoes, wild fires, floods, and everything in between, including some only mentioned in The Bible. But February is finally over at long last, and we've managed to kick it to the curb, however reluctant it may have gone, and be able to get on with our lives with a fresh and brand new month stretching out before us. Around here, the weather in February was unremarkable for the most part, and we dodged most of the meteorological tricks that Old Man Winter had up his sleeve, unlike some neighboring areas that weren't so lucky. It's still cold and blustery much of the time (or perhaps it just seems that way for the winter-weary among us) as it should be this time of year, but seeing the days getting longer is a welcome trend, and last week I spotted our first early crocus in the front yard, looking as jaunty as ever in purple clusters here and there. There's even about 4 inches of daffodil shoots starting to sprout up in the sunnier spots, some with buds already, like they just can't wait to burst forth in golden yellow exuberance. They're still weeks away from actually blooming, but a sight for sore eyes in the barren flowerbeds, promising hope for brighter days ahead. Say, where did that plague of locusts come from? Of course, everyone knows that it took longer to get out of February than usual, thanks to the extra day tacked on at the end, also known as Sadie Hawkins Day, traditionally accepted in folklore as a day when single women - even in olden times - could propose to the bachelor of their choice, and he would oblige, or pay a penalty for refusing. Alert readers may be wondering (and well may they wonder, indeed) why it is called Leap Year, since we don't leap over a day, we add a day. A cursory online search yields this relevant information: ====================================================== Going from one non-leap year (or "common year") to the next, the same day of the year will advance by one day of the week. But when the leap year day is added on Feb. 29, that same day of the year will advance by 2 days of the week. (June 10 was on a Tuesday in 2014, then on a Wednesday in 2015, but will be on a Friday in 2016, leaping over the Thursday.) ======================================================= "But wait," as they always say in late-night infomercials, "that's not all!" I don't know if they were leaping in ancient Rome, when this whole business started, but according to our friends at Workman Publishing and their very informative Word-A-Day calendar, it is properly referred to as a "bissextile year" instead. Here's how they describe it: ======================================================== When Julius Caesar reformed the calendar in 45 B.C., he stipulated that an extra day be added to February every four years. But the Romans didn't add the extra day at the end of the month; they inserted it after the 24th day of the month. The Romans reckoned days near the end of a month by counting backward from the first of the following month. Since February 24 is six days before March 1 (the Roman method of counting days included both the beginning day and the ending day), it was known as the sextus, or "sixth day." Caesar's extra day became a second sextus, or bissextus. English speakers adopted bissextile to refer to that extra day, even though its placement in the modern calendar makes that term a misnomer. ========================================================== So that's the scoop, the whole scoop, and nothing but the scoop, calendar fans, and we can't even blame it on the time-shifting foxes being put in charge of the chronology hen house once again, heaven knows, because Julius Caesar would have had that chicken coop running like a fine Swiss watch, and giving the over-matched foxes no chance to toss a monkey wrench into the works. Let's face it, 2061 years later, it's still holding up - although to say that it stands the test of time would not only be a very poor excuse for a pun, but also an understatement of epic proportions. E tu, Longines Wittnauer? And just when you think that the time could not get any more out of joint, or wonder if time is on my side, or the times they are a-changing, so we should let the good times roll - then along comes the dratted Daylight Saving Time next week on Sunday the 13th, where we spring ahead, lose an hour, and devil take the hind-most, thanks not. Actually, springing ahead fits right in with our timely theme of the moment, and just in time for Spring to appear the following Sunday on March 20th (which also happens to be Palm Sunday, of all things) and right on time - and not to mention, the Emperor Julius, the Druids and I ought to know. So next week at this time, when it's 8:00 in the morning, because of the inaptly named Daylight Saving Time, it will presumably be (let's see now ..... if the sun rises in the east ..... divide by the hypotenuse ..... any month without a "Y" ..... then carry the 1 ..... turn counter-clockwise ..... times velocity squared ..... plus compound interest at 5.25% ..... stir to combine and shake until frothy) 5:00 in the afternoon on July 4, 1776. Wait a minute, that can't be right, that's when the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. Oh well, it's something like that anyway, I never could figure this stuff out, with the time skittering all over the place like a drunken sailor on a 3-day pass. It's a good thing that modern technological devices all pretty much adjust for DST entirely on their own, or we'd all end up late to church on the 13th, or way too early, or on the wrong day completely, or back in the Continental Congress all over again, by George. Come to think of it, I have the feeling that you're supposed to take the square root of the thing, rather than divide by the hypotenuse after all. And while we're having the time of our lives, marking time, wasting time, or perhaps buying time, it certainly feels like we've all been doing some time travel lately, and looks a lot like the 1970's all over again - at least as far as gas prices are concerned. For those of us "of a certain age," who lived through the OPEC oil embargo and ensuing energy crisis of 1979, there's no way to forget the harrowing experience of odd-even gas rationing, long lines at the pump, and the entirely incomprehensible notion of prices going over $1.00 per gallon for the first time in history. (By contrast, when I started driving in 1973, regular gas was 25 cents a gallon, and people would routinely drive around scouting for an off-brand station to get it for 23 cents instead - ah, those were the days!) Oddly enough, it doesn't seem that long ago that gas prices were nipping at the heels of $5.00 per gallon, and people were spending more to fill up their cars, than a week's worth of grocery shopping - and even worse was the effect on airline tickets, home heating oil, and just about anything delivered by truck. At this point, nobody would ever imagine we'd live to see the day that gas prices would actually come DOWN again, and yet miraculously, that day has indeed dawned, and then some. A survey of local prices would find them dropping into the low $1.70's, believe it or not, and even the big brand names like Sunoco and Gulf are below $1.90, which would have seemed inconceivable just a couple of years ago. Why, next thing you know, it will be bell-bottoms, Pet Rocks, and disco music all over again, and don't spare the Bartles & Jaymes, my good man! In any event, there's a wealth of stuff that I don't miss from 1979, but frankly, I'm pretty sure that lower gas prices are something that we can all rally around, and that's not just a lot of Super Shell with Platformate, believe me. (The dinosaurs and I can assure you that young whipper-snappers today would fall over laughing if you tried to explain those old Platformate commercials to them nowadays, I dare say.) Personally, I'd love to stay here and enjoy the 1970's again as much as the next fellow, but unfortunately, it's time that I was getting back to the Continental Congress. Elle