LEAP YEAR BABIES' BIG DAY; BIRTHDAY EVERY FOUR YEARS KEEPS THEM YOUNG

For most people, Feb. 29 is little more than a number on the calendar, a chance to straighten out the world's way of keeping time.

For Leap Year Day babies, it is a chance to have another rare birthday -- once every four years. And parents of those babies, careful not to play favorites, will at least say the children born on Feb. 29 are special.

For example, Aisha Chamon Jones' birth came with a little more fanfare than the average delivery.

It was 1976, and Americans observed the Bicentennial with patriotic fervor. It was a leap year, too, so the only thing better than being born on the Fourth of July was being born on Feb. 29.

Jones arrived at 11:05 a.m. that Sunday, two weeks before she was due. And the loot started pouring in.

First, there was a $5 certificate from Southeast Missouri Hospital to begin a savings account at Colonial Federal Savings and Loan. Then-congressman Bill D. Burlison of Missouri's old 10th District sent a big card and letter of congratulations, noting the Leap Year Day birthday.

The Southeast Missourian did a story about the four special babies born Feb. 29 in Cape Girardeau, mentioning Jones and her parents, Willie and Ada Jones.

It read: "All the proud mothers said they considered their babies extra special because of their birthday and intend to make Feb. 29 one of the biggest days every four years."

Things didn't quite work out that way for Jones, who celebrates on Feb. 28 during non-leap years.

"It's just the same, only an extra day," she said. "It's a normal day to me. I don't feel any different."

In fact, other people find Jones' birthday more interesting than she does. When she went to get her driver's license, an employee at the License Bureau insisted her birth certificate was incorrect. It wasn't, of course, and now people ask Jones if they can see her driver's license as proof of her birthday.

In junior high school, Jones discovered that a classmate, Craig Scheer, was born only a few minutes before her on the same day. Their mothers were across the hall from each other at the hospital.

"At first I said: `You can't be born on that day. I was born on that day,'" Jones said. "He kept telling me that he was. It was the neatest thing."

Her brother thinks her birthday is neat, too. He's only 14, Jones said, but he professes to be years older than his sister. She has only had five real birthdays.

Using those mathematics, Earley Proffer turns 21 today -- the age he can finally drink legally.

Proffer laughed at the thought. "I did my drinking years ago, when you could buy moonshine for $1.50 a gallon," he said.

Proffer and his wife, Marcella, live near Lake Girardeau, and will celebrate his 84th birthday today. On other years, he celebrates the first Sunday after Feb. 28, an old family tradition.

He was born in 1912, delivered on the family farm by a midwife everyone called Aunt Molly Brown. There wasn't much fanfare accompanying a Leap Year Day birth back then. His family was more concerned about putting food on the table, especially after Proffer's father died. Proffer was 10 at the time and went to work the following year.

"We never paid much attention to my birthday or leap year," he said. "It was just another year. Back then, if I got one little gift, I was lucky. A dollar was hard to get."

Over the years Proffer worked as a farmer, factory worker, logger and carpenter. When he met Marcella in a cafe in 1948, and eventually married her, she made sure his birthdays were a little more special.

Today, "surprise guests" are due to arrive for a birthday observance, she said.

The party will be a lot different than Jeremy Shank's. He turned 8 years old today and will gather with nine of his best friends at Kid's World in Cape Girardeau.

Jeremy, the son of Jim and Debbie Shank, has mixed feelings about his special birthday.

"It's fun because I keep telling kids I'll be 12 on my next birthday," he said. "But it's not fun because everyone keeps telling me I'm only 2."

All the Shank children have special birthdays: Jeremy's older brother was born on Memorial Day and his younger brother on the first day of summer. But the boys' mother thinks her middle child's birthday stands out the most, although she didn't think about it during pregnancy.

"It was Feb. 28, and I was a week past my due date and went to the doctor for a regular appointment," Debbie Shank said. "He told me to check into the hospital the next day without even thinking. Later, he apologized and said the kid was going to hate him.

"But we aren't sorry. Jeremy's birthday is very special."