February 27; three days left in the month

Here I am, doing the radio show and checking my book of dates to see what happened on this day in history. The usual stuff: people born, people died, things invented.

It’s a normal day, this February 27. Nothing remarkable about it and tomorrow I’ll be reading the events of the 28th and reminding people it’s the end of the month. Only difference is I have two more pages in the book: the expected 29th and the unexpected 30th of February. Thirty Days Hath February? When did that come about?

I don’t know. But I do know it ended about 130 b.c. Or b.c.e. (I guess that means either Before Christ or Before the Common Era – nice try, heathens.) Someone was greedy and that someone’s initials were Caesar Augustus. Now, I personally don’t give a rat’s arse about a day here or there, nor about C.A. and robbing February to pay August.

But that sort of messes up my radio program, especially at the start when I read the events of the day. How can I say, “This is the day when…” if the day doesn’t exist? It did when the event happened, but that day was moved six months down the line and I really don’t think the event moved with it.

“Out in the world of what was, sometime in the middle of the stroke of midnight, some stuff happened on an ephemeral day in history. A day that lives on in the Twilight Zone. A day held sacred in heaven alone. When we reach that blessed abode, we can visit there. But right now, it’s somewhere in calendarial limbo.”