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A cloudy start, but sunny skies forecast

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On the Books: Exploring reincarnation through Sharon Guskin’s “The Forgetting Time”

WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Imagine being born on Feb. 29. You&#8217;d get to celebrate a real birthday only every four years. Or you could celebrate your birthday twice a year every year.Huh?Feb. 29 only appears on the calendar every four years &#8212; during &#8220;leap year&#8221; &#8212; so real celebrations for birthdays and anniversaries are, well, few and far between.Or they&#8217;re celebrated for an extended period of time, at least over two days.Traditionalists celebrate only on their actual birthday &#8212; every four years on Feb. 29, the day they were born.I have no idea where that day &#8212; Feb. 29 &#8212; goes during those other three years. I do know it appears every fourth year and things like birthdays, weddings and even deaths happen on that day.It might be easier to find those three seconds at the end of the 1972 Olympic gold medal basketball game between the U.S. and Soviet Union. Those seconds never ran off the game clock and the Soviets won the controversial game.Back to Leap Year:&#8226; If you&#8217;re turning 20 on Monday, in leap years, you&#8217;re really only 5 years old and preparing for kindergarten. I hope you&#8217;re good at coloring and cursive writing. And make sure you get a really cool backpack.&#8226; If you&#8217;re turning 64 on Monday, you&#8217;re preparing for your &#8220;Sweet 16&#8221; party.&#8226; If you&#8217;re 71 turning 72, you&#8217;ll soon be 18 in leap year age, making you a senior in high school and eligible for service to your country. You will also be able to vote in this year&#8217;s presidential election.&#8226; If you&#8217;re 83, come Monday, you&#8217;ll be 21 (84), and will be able to enjoy your first alcoholic drink.&#8226; If you were married 50 years ago on Feb. 29, you could say it&#8217;s only been 12&#189; years. Seems like yesterday, doesn&#8217;t it? Or, maybe like forever?&#8226; A &#8220;leapling or leaper&#8221; &#8212; that&#8217;s what Leap Year babies call themselves &#8212; can get his or her driver&#8217;s licence at the age of 4. &#8220;Honey, was that a baby driving that car?&#8221;If you know a &#8220;Leap Day&#8221; person, during non-leap years you can call them on Feb. 28 and say, &#8220;I hope you have a great birthday tomorrow.&#8221; Then the next day (March 1), you can call and say, &#8220;I&#8217;m so sorry I missed your birthday.&#8221;Without getting scientific, each year is actually 365&#188; days. Leap years are observed to compensate for the extra six hours not included in a calendar year.Mike Bonavoglia, of Dunmore, will be 32 years old on Monday.&#8220;Or 8, depending on how you look at it,&#8221; Mike said.Mike works at the Mohegan Sun Casino as a dual-rate supervisor in the table games department, which means sometimes he&#8217;s a dealer and other times he&#8217;s a supervisor. He&#8217;s also the assistant golf coach at Lackawanna College.Mike said it&#8217;s &#8220;definitely different&#8221; having an actual birthday every four years instead of every year. His older brother would tease him when growing up, saying Mike didn&#8217;t have a birthday at all.When Mike tells people his birthday, reactions are mixed, but confusion usually reigns. There&#8217;s always a celebration, though &#8212; Mike&#8217;s parents had a birthday cake and presents every year to avoid any emotional trauma.He said everything was always there for his birthday celebrations &#8212; well, except the actual day.As an adult, Mike celebrates on the nearest weekend after Feb. 28.&#8220;I guess it&#8217;s a trait that makes me stand out,&#8221; he said.So in non-leap years, he waits until after Feb. 28 to celebrate because he knows he was born &#8220;somewhere in there.&#8221;Mike has fun with his birthday, or lack thereof. He likes to tease his nephew, who is 10, and his 4-year-old niece.&#8220;I tell my nephew that he passed me out and my niece that she is catching up to me,&#8221; he said.All in all, Mike has experienced little difficulties. He does get some questionable looks when he presents his driver&#8217;s license.&#8220;Some people tell me that it&#8217;s not a real day,&#8221; he said.And then he schools them on Leap Year, what it is and why it must be observed.Whatever the case, Mike has never let his occasional birthday get him down.He and all leaplings/leapers have one other thing in common &#8212; with one-fourth of the birthdays most of us have, they truly are forever young.<style>
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<div class="neCaption">Bill O&#8217;Boyle </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_Oboyle_Bill-2-1-13.jpg</photo0><caption0>Bill O&#8217;Boyle </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Bill O&#8217;Boyleboboyle@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Bill O&#8217;Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.</shirttailMeta></div>

In Focus: Imagine celebrating your birthday only every four years