Dear George,
I sometimes think that the
start of February is the gloomiest time of the year. It feels like we’ve
been putting up with the dark and cold forever, and the winter shows little
sign of letting up. If anything, we’re probably due for more snow and ice
in February than we’ve had in December or January. Like many places,
February in Cincinnati is one of the coldest months of the year (average lows
of 26 degrees) and one of the snowiest (5.3 inches). It’s cloudy over 80%
of the time, and it’s the second windiest month of the year (10.2 m.p.h.),
making the wind chills more biting than the actual temperatures. One
discouraging consequence is that my daily FitBit points have dropped over 50%
since October, tangible proof of lethargy and stagnation.
Of course, February can
include good things. When we were kids February meant hiking across the
frozen Menominee River to Pig Island, walking on snowshoes to Brewery Park,
racing barefoot in the driveway, building forts and snowmen in the front yard,
sledding off the river bank, and snow day vacations from school. My
father would tie our toboggan to the rear bumper of the Lincoln V-12 and tow us
along Riverside Boulevard at hair-raising speeds.
Valentine’s Day on Feb. 14
was an exciting holiday at Washington Grade School since the boys and girls
could send semi-amorous Valentine cards to one another. The children’s
rule was to never send valentines to everybody in the class since that would
defeat the purpose of assessing popularity by the number of valentine cards
received. On the other hand, we tried to make sure that nobody wound up
with zero valentines. I never got the most valentines among my
classmates, but fortunately I never got the fewest either. We celebrated
Washington’s Birthday (Feb. 12) and Lincoln’s Birthday (Feb. 22) in school,
learning about chopping down the cherry tree and the Emancipation
Proclamation. We were also curious about Groundhog Day. We didn’t
have any groundhogs in Menominee, but I’d go outdoors each February 2 and
determine whether groundhogs would have seen their shadows had they been there.
Though we didn’t have it in childhood, February has officially been Black
History Month since it was designated so by President Gerald Ford in 1976.
In recent years Super Bowls
have been held on the first Sunday of February. Though we aren’t
sophisticated fans, Katja and I have watched every Super Bowl since the Green
Bay Packers won No. I in 1967. We were saddened by the Packers’ playoff
departure this year. As inveterate movie-goers, we’re faithful followers
of the Academy Awards which occur toward the end of February. Katja is
rooting for Leonardo DiCaprio and The Revenant this year, while I’m leaning
toward Spotlight and Cate Blanchett.
There are many puzzling
facts about February. One is that it’s not entirely clear how you say the
name of this month. Actually there is a choice. People most
frequently pronounce it feb-ew-err-ee, as if it were spelled “Feb-u-ary”.
That sounds similar to January. The month’s actual spelling, however,
suggests the pronunciation, feb-roo-err-ee. I try to say it that way, but
it’s not popular because having two “r”s close together is more difficulty to
say.
One February fact that I’ve
never been able to assimilate is that February is the third month of summer in
the Southern Hemisphere. In Melbourne, Australia, for example, it’s the
warmest month of the year with high temperatures averaging 79 and daily lows of
60. I’ve always experienced February’s freezing temperatures as
objective reality, and it’s hard to imagine this “truth” being a mere accident
of place.
February got its name from
the Latin word “februum” which means “purification”. Februus was the
Roman god of purification, and he was also the Etruscan god of the Underworld.
The Februa purification ritual was held on February 15, the night of a full
moon in the lunar Roman calendar. Originally January and February didn’t
even exist in the ancient Roman calendar since the Romans considered winter to
be irrelevant to the harvest and a period which was consequently not divided
into months. January and February were added to the ten-month calendar as
the final two months of the year by Numa Pompilius about 713 BC. February
was moved to the second month of the year about 450 BC.
Unlike the rest of the
months, February only has 28 days. It’s shorter in part because the Roman
emperor Augustus took one of its days and gave it away to August because that
month was named after him. Another puzzling thing is that every fourth
year February has 29 days. That’s because the seasons don’t proceed in
exact 24-hour day cycles, and so, if the number of days was constant every
year, calendars would drift over time and soon get out of alignment with
the seasons. By adding an additional day every four years, that potential
drift can be corrected. That year is called “Leap Year” because the extra
day involves “leaping over” one of the days in the week. For example, the
Fourth of July was on on Wednesday in 2001, on Thursday in 2002, on Friday in
2003, but then it “leapt” over Saturday and fell on Sunday in 2004.
Babies born on February 29 are called “leaplings”.
A long-time tradition in
Britain and Ireland holds that women can propose marriage during Leap Year. Queen
Margaret of Scotland is said to have instituted a law in 1288 calling for a
fine if a man refused a marriage proposal during leap year. The fine included
giving a pair of leather gloves to the woman, a single rose, a one-pound note,
and a kiss. Nowadays the tradition is usually applied just to Leap Day,
February 29.
Zillions of important
events in U.S. and world history have occurred in February. Here are ten
that stand out to me:
Feb. 4: George Washington
was elected by the Electoral College (1789).
Feb. 9: The Beatles made
their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show (1964).
Feb. 11: Nelson Mandela was
released from prison (1990).
Feb. 12: President Bill
Clinton was acquitted on impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of
justice (1999).
Feb. 16: Fidel Castro was
sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba (1959).
Feb. 22: In the “Miracle on
Ice,” the U.S. hockey team defeated Russia, 4-2, in the Winter Olympics (1980).
Feb. 23: U.S. Marines took
the crest of Mount Suribachi from the Japanese in the Battle of Iwo Jima
(1945).
Feb. 24: National Public
Ratio was founded (1970).
Feb. 27: Carl Gustav Jung
and Sigmund Freud met for the first time in Vienna (1907).
Feb. 27: The first Mardi
Gras was held in New Orleans (1827).
In our family’s history
February is important because of all the birthdays. I’ll send cards to my brother-in-law David on February 2 and to
my sister Vicki on February 24, think fondly of my mother Doris on February 25,
and toast my brother Steve with a glass of Merlot on February 27. Happy
birthday to all the February birthdays that we know.
Love,
Dave
Sources: www.americangreetings.com, “February Birthday Fun Facts”; www.city-data.com, “Cincinnati, Ohio”; www.ducksters.com, “Black History Month”; www.express.co.uk, “10 Facts About February”;
www.famousbirthdays.com, “February Facts”; www.irishnewsarchive.com, “Interesting February Facts”; www.popculturemadness,
“February — History, Trivia & Fun Facts”; www.wikipedia.org, “February”, “Leap year”
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