Glenn S. Segal braced for it, and he got it right on schedule.
"Happy Birthday, Mr. Segal. We're older than you are," chanted his sixth-graders yesterday at Dumbarton Middle School when he walked into his classroom, which had been decked out with cards, presents and "Happy Birthday, Big 8" chalked across the blackboard.
As one of the nearly 10,000 leap year babies born in the United States on the quadrennial Feb. 29, Mr. Segal said he enjoys the jokes that seem to be the fate of people like himself. "It creates a big event every four years, but everyone else seems to make a bigger deal out of it than I do," he said.
Mr. Segal is a dedicated Looney Tunes fan, and his hobby played right into the students' hands. For seven years, he has collected Looney Tunes cartoon memorabilia, and among his presents were a poster of cartoon characters -- which he promptly hung over a classroom project -- and a Bugs Bunny TC book. "I always get little kids' presents," the science teacher quipped.
However, because Mr. Segal is chronologically 32, Dumbarton Principal Lynn Hoffman planned natal festivities for an adult. She gave a Chinese food birthday party for Mr. Segal and his fellow teachers at her Towson home.
Birthdays weren't the only leap year tradition played out yesterday. The Baltimore County Courts Building was abuzz with couples getting married -- after the women proposed.
Joanne O'Brien, a self-proclaimed "domestic goddess," proposed to Paul Martin a year ago -- two years after his daughter Bernice brought them together -- but it took her until yesterday to get him under the flower-decorated arbor in the marriage ceremonial room. One thing for sure: the new Mrs. Martin was far happier yesterday than she was on leap day 1988 -- the day she got divorced.
A seeming glitch occurred in another ceremony when the bride, who had popped the question in the first place, paused momentarily when Deputy Clerk Marlene King told the couple to join hands.
"If you want to back out, now's your time," groom Lonnie S. Coplin, 48, said to bride Lisa Marie Arrington, 27. She shook her head, smiled and gripped his hands.
The Coplins are from the York, Pa., area and said they came to Towson to be married because Pennsylvania requires premarital physicals and blood tests. "I didn't want a blood test. I don't like needles," Mrs. Coplin said.
And why did they choose to be married yesterday? "I like to be different, not like everyone else," Mr. Coplin said.
