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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 28, 1960)
11 who needs it? It's always "open season" for hunting mates, and tomorrow's no exception, says this miniature model of masculinity By ARNOLD STANG So every four years we have a Leap Year, right? Like tomorrow, a 29th day in a month where usually there are only 28. So, big deal somebody needs that extra day? Cheep, cheep, Leap Year is supposed to be a big thing for women, but even they don't need it Take it from me, they don't sit around on their hope chests from one February 29th to another just so's every four years they get one day they can legiti mately propose marriage. - No doubt some women do take advantage of it being Leap Year to set their caps on a guy, but smarten up, friends, the girls are in there grab bing themselves off a man any time and any way they can. By them, hooking a husband is a full-. time, around-the-calendar proposition, and Leap Year is no exception. ' Personally, I'm not in favor. To me, a woman should be a woman, you know what I mean? She should play the desired one" it's a much better role for her. But females are getting less feminine every day, and popping the question of marriage is just another step into what used to be a man's world. In spite of it all, though, the marriage rate in this country is just about the same in regular years as in the ones like 1960 where the ladies get an un official sanction to land themselves a spouse. This proves that with women it's always the 29th of February. Another thing about Leap Year is that it costs so much. The stores are open an extra day, every body has sales, and zingo there goes the family budget Besides that, just to run the Federal Govern ment this one additional day is going to cost tax payers an extra hundred million dollars! No kid- . ding; and that's just to pay people for the extra day on the job. It doesn't figure in things like the tons of paper that'll be used up in Government of fices, the coffee breaks, the telephone calls, and things like that ' Just to pay the mailmen tomorrow will cost ah extra seven million dollars. And what a mockery that is! On the last day of the month, who ever gets anything in the mail but bills? On top of everything else, Leap Year doesn't even do what it was planned to do when Julius Caesar or some other smart aleck like that got the whole miserable idea started. The extra day every four years was supposed to fix things so that the calendar really came out even with sun time and all that jazz, but don't let anybody kid you: it doesn't What I mean is Leap Year is supposed to be, like clockwork, every fourth year, right? But 1900 which everybody expected to have a 29th of Feb ruary, didn't Neither did 1800 or 1700 for that mat ter, but the year 2000 willso who can figureit? In spite of all these twists with the calendar, sci entists say that a year is still 26 seconds out of whack. That may not sound like much, but over the years it adds up, you know. So what Leap Year in general amounts to, in my way of thinking, is a complete bust, a nothing. When Family Weekly asked me to pose for today's cover, it sort of nominated me as a man most un likely to succeed romantically, the kind of neb bish who really needs the help of Leap Year in his love life. - - Well, let's face it Cary Grant or Rock Hudson I ain't But I've been happily married now since 1949, which was not a Leap Year, incidentally. And when Jo-Anne and I decided to become one, it was my idea, and it was me who did the proposing and the planning and the arranging at least, I think it was. fb$F' t i3 It didn't take a Leap 'fear for Jo-Anne to persuade Arnold that she should become the future Mrs. Stang. COVER: It was an uphill struggle to find a really unlikely candidate for our Leap Year cover. End of search: comedian Arnold Stang; photo by: Richard Heimann; bonus: the story above, an .odd, view of our odd day. Fainily LEONARD $. DAVIDOW President and Publisher WAITER C. DREYFUS Vice President PATRICK E. OKOURKE Advertising Director Send all advertising communications to Family Weakly, 133 N. Michigan Ave.. Chicago I, III. Addm all communications about editorial features to Family Weekly. 60 E. 56m St.. Ntw York 22, N. Y. . February 2S, I960 Board of Editors I ERNtST V. UEYN Editor-in-Chief . BEN KARTMAN Executive Editor ROBERT FirZGIMON Managing Editor MARGARET BELL Feature Editor PHILLIP OVKSTRA Art Director MEIANIE IX PROFT Food Editor Bab Driscoll, Irma Heldman. John Hochmonn, Jerry Klein, Harold London. Jack Ryan; feer Oppsnhsimer. Hollywood. 10, FAMILY WEEKLY MAGAZINE. INC. 133 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 1. III. All rights immd.
