
Thursday, February 28, 2008
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Society

City Personals
Mary Clay Brooks

Charlie Ann Johnson, newest member of Johnson family

A warm welcome goes out to the newest member of our community, Charlie Ann Johnson, daughter of Holly and David Johnson.

She was born Monday afternoon in the Baptist Women’s Center. Congratulations to her parents and her grandparents! Can’t wait to see her!

(To put your news in City Personals, please e-mail maryclayb@yahoo.com; mail to City Personals, The South Reporter, P.O. Box 278, Holly Springs, MS 38635 or call 662-252-4261.

You may also e-mail your City Personal news to south@dixie-net.com).

Stephanie Hill and Richard Frederick Jr.

Stephanie Hill and Richard Frederick Jr. to wed April 5 at Bethany Baptist Church

David and Janice Hill are pleased to announce the forthcoming marriage of their daughter, Stephanie, to Richard Frederick Jr., son of Richard and Linda Frederick of Tremont.

Stephanie is the granddaughter of Harrell Whitehorn and the late Janie Whitehorn of Cornersville, and the late Russell and Jane Hill of Sardis. She is a graduate of Potts Camp High School. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi State University and master’s degree from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

Richard is the grandson of the late Ergo and Era Frederick of Tremont, and the late Benson and Lizzie Franks of Mantachie. He is a graduate of Tremont High School. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Mississippi State University.

The couple will exchange vows at Bethany Baptist Church, Potts Camp, on April 5, 2008.

Birth announcement

Watts

Art and Alicia Watts of Oxford are pleased to announce the birth of a daughter. Madalynne Elise Watts was born on January 23, 2008 in the Special Delivery Services at Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi. She weighed nine pounds, seven ounces and was 22 inches long.

Welcoming the new baby is her big sister Ana Brooke Watts.

Sharing the honors as grandparents are John and Butone Mansel of Potts Camp and Tommy and Patricia Watts of Oxford.

Great-grandparents are the late Madalynne E. Hale and the late Pat Connell, Ollie Mansel and the late Warner Mansel, the late Elvin Thweatt and Ozie Thweatt, and the late Arthur Watts and the late Luna Watts.

Museuming
Lois Swanee
Museum Curator

Why is there a leap year?

Leap Year: The only person that I know who was born on leap year was my nephew, Jack Beck. This year he will celebrate his 18th birthday but he will be 72 years old. Jack has always been single and today lives in a glorified nursing home which he loves. All his needs are met there. Lately, he received a new ten-speed wheelchair. However, he was caught speeding down the hall. He received a ticket and had to give up his wheelchair for awhile.

Jack graduated from Ole Miss and became a Spanish teacher in high schools. At the retirement home there was a church next door and a lot of Spanish speaking services were held there. Jack taught Sunday School there for awhile. He has really enjoyed going to church there. Once in a while the home has excursions for the people who are able to go. On one such excursion they went to a mall where there was a band playing. A teenaged girl was dancing, so Jack got up out of his wheelchair and began to dance with her. I wish I had that photo to go along with this article. It came out on the front page of the DeSoto Commerical Appeal.

Connie Beck was Jack’s mother. Her birthday was February 28, so Jack celebrated birthdays with her every year. “Fix-it” man? He was a leap year person.

Ruby Bowie will celebrate her 21st birthday this week. She and her husband got married a week after her 8th birthday, 60 years ago. Her children are teasing her about being older than her grandchildren and say now she is old enough to drink. They enjoyed having a teenager for a parent all those years.

Our calendar originally comes from a semi-lunar one, this is why the word month is so similar to the word moon. The twelve months followed the actual lunar movement by adopting months of 29 and 30 days alternately. This result gave a year of 354 days, which followed the moons, but was far short of the 365-day solar year.

For this reason, an intercalary month of varying length was added every two to three years. This completed the solar year, and kept the seasons in order.

In Roman times, the intercalary month became a way for the Roman pontiffs to manipulate politics. The Pontiffs decided when the intercalary month would occur: consuls who they favored were given an extra month in office. Those who they disliked found themselves out of office, even though an intercalary month was overdue.

The result was that in troubled times, the Roman calendar gradually got out of hand, as people added or withdrew intercalary months for political reasons, and not to keep the seasons in order.

By the time Julius Caesar returned to Rome in 45 B.C. The abuse of this practice was so great that the spring equinox was falling in winter. This was creating disturbances and confusion throughout the Empire. To restore the calendar to its supposed original relation with the seasons, he extended the year of 45 B.C. to 445 days, adding the months of Unidecember and Duodecember -- this became known as the Year of Confusion.

Julius Caesar, under the advice of Cleopatra’s astrologer changed the Roman semi-lunar calendar to fit the Egyptian calendar of Thoth. He adjusted the lengths of the months so that there were 365 days to a year with only one intercalary day required every four years.

The year of 44 B.C. would start on January 1, the first new moon after winter solstice. Caesar changed the name of the month Quintilis, which means five, to Julius, or July. He also had coins stuck to commemorate the calends of the new year. The first year of the new calendar was also the first time any ruler in the Roman Republic had minted coins with their own portrait on them. At this time in history, temples were to be built to him as if he were a god.

One might think that since the new year began on January 1, that the leap year day would be on December 32. Though Caesar made radical changes to the calendar, he did not feel that could move the time when the intercalations were made because they had become interwoven with the religious observances during the month of February. This was when the pontiffs had previously added their intercalary month for consuls they favored, the time Caesar had done away with.

On the Ides (the 15th) of February, the festivals were celebrated. These feasts were believed to honor the god Februus, the purifier. To celebrate the holy day, two male priest ran through the streets wearing only the skins of sacrificed animals, beating women with leather straps called februa in the belief that it would make them fertile. It seems that in order to make his calendar change part of religious observances he chose this day - the ancient precursor to Valentine’s Day - to appear before the crowd for the first time in a purple toga and a gold wreath, the dress of the ancient kings of Rome.

He was then presented to the public for the first time as dictator for life. His consul, Mark Anthony, offered him the crown of Rome and the title of Rex or king, which Caesar turned down saying that Jupiter alone is the king of Rome - and the crowd cheered. The people feared the idea of a king, they had the right to vote and lived in a powerful republic.

The crowned cheered the new Dictatus Perpetuus, but the members of the Senate realized they had lost complete control of the calendar and realized the full meaning of the word dictator. They assassinated him exactly one month later, on the Ides of March.

Complete chaos and anarchy ensued until about 30 B.C. All of the senators were killed and Mark Anthony and Cleopatra committed suicide. The patricians left standing were the son of Julius Caesar, Augustus and his supporters.

Augustus Caesar took complete control of the republic and declared that he and his father were gods. Augustus placed his name in the calendar, August, alongside that of his father, July.

And that is why we have leap year on February 29, and why our calendar is as crooked and illogical as it is. So if you want to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, why not start with his calendar.

(Taken from tortuga.com)

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