Leap Thursday

Leap Day falls on a Thursday this year for the first time since 1996.

I remember 1996.  It was a year when you didn't have to worry about climate change so much, when a blizzard in January happened not because of climate change but because it was January.  And even though it was the year that a Christian nationalist named Eric Rudolph bombed a park in Atlanta, you didn't have the President of the United States say he was a fine person for the other side of the cultural debate.

I also remember when you were just as likely to hear Rush on FM radio as you were to hear Rush Limbaugh on AM radio, because even though the Telecommunications Act passed that year eventually ruined radio, you didn't need to get satellite radio to hear rock music because it was still available on terrestrial radio.  In fact, we didn't even have satellite radio in 1996.

And the fact that you could still hear rock on terrestrial radio meant that you could avoid the Macarena.

I have some personal memories of 1996.  I remember getting my first 9-to-5 full-time office job since graduating from college.  ("But Steve," you say, you graduated from college in 1988!"  I know . . ..)  My mother and I got our kitchen redone for the first time since we moved in.  I visited the Winterthur gardens in Delaware for the first time.  And I drove to Cleveland to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which had just opened a year before.  On my way home, I drove through northern Pennsylvania on scenic U.S. Route 6.

Given that's happened with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since, I remember the trip home on Route 6 more fondly.  Probably because I stopped at Presque Isle State Park on Lake Erie in Pennsylvania along the way.  No, I think it was because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame started inducting pop, non-rock acts soon after.  Well, I still liked Presque Isle State Park.

Also, we didn't have social media, which mean that I couldn't meet any top fashion models, but it also meant that a foreign adversary couldn't meddle in our elections.  We did have "Seinfeld," and it's damn hard for me to find any sitcom as funny as that today.  But at least I can find old TV favorites on YouTube, which also didn't exist in 1996.

Mmm . . . You know, on balance, I think 1996 was a better year.  And I don't expect to look back fondly on 2024 if I'm still around for the next Leap Thursday in 2052.