John Walls is getting to celebrate his birthday this year — and he can have either 32 or eight candles on his cake.
He’s a leap-year baby, born on Feb. 29, which is only on the calendar every four years.
Walls, who works for Channel 6 at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, said it was when he was “8, or my second birthday,” that he realized how unique it was.
“I remember it being a big deal, mainly for the family,” Walls said of having a leap-year birthday. “It didn’t really hit me, or I didn’t see the effects that I didn’t have a birthday like everybody else, till I was 8 years old, and I thought, ‘Hey, this is cool.’”
His mother, Cindy Walls, said she went into labor and was hoping to give birth Feb. 28, but John was born Feb. 29 by cesarean section.
“I wanted him born before then, but he was determined he was going to wait,” she said.
She tried to make his birthday special every four years.
“We tried to do something really, really big for his actual birthday,” she said.
John Walls said his family moved to Arkansas in 1991 from Wilmington, Delaware, a few months before his 8th birthday. For his birthday, his grandfather Doc Talley drove from Delaware to surprise Walls. They started a tradition of going to Waffle House, or the House of Waffles, as his grandfather called it, for his birthday breakfast.
Walls said that Talley, who died in 2013, loved to tease him or play jokes on him about his birthday. Instead of a birthday card for his actual age, Walls said, his grandfather would send him a child’s card with sentiments such as, “Hurrah, I’m 3 today!”
“When I was 16, I had said I wanted a truck,” Walls said. “My mom was laying this guilt trip on me: ‘Sounds like your grandpa is really going to get you a truck; you need to act surprised and thankful.’”
Walls got a package in the mail from his grandfather. “It was a Matchbox truck,” Walls said.
“That’s the kind of truck a 4-year-old needs to have,” he said his mother told him.
“I said, ‘I can’t be mad; this is too funny,’” Walls said.
He said his other memorable “real” birthday was when he turned 20. He was a UCA student, and he was busy, but his mother kept insisting they go to lunch at Cracker Barrel. He saw his aunt outside, and he knew his grandfather would be there, too. When Walls went inside, his grandfather was waiting.
“He’s crying when he sees me walk into Cracker Barrel. We were all together on my 20th birthday and went to Oaklawn,” Walls said.
Cindy Walls said that four years ago, to celebrate her son’s leap-year birthday, they also went to Oaklawn, and John got to present a trophy after one of the races.
“The race was named John’s Leap Year Stakes Race, or something like that,” she said.
Walls said that in the years when February has 28 days, he celebrates his birthday on March 1.
In high school, he said one of his friends had a tradition. She would call him at 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 28 and kept him on the phone until 12:01 a.m. March 1. “She said in between, there was my birthday,” Walls said.
“I don’t get excited about my birthday unless it’s a leap year. You try to combine four years of birthdays into one,” he said.
His birthday has confused more than one restaurant server who has looked at his driver’s license.
“I get carded, and they’re like, ‘This is fake.’”
Walls said his grandfather died in 2013, so “this is the first leap year I will have where I don’t get some sort of prank or joke.”
However, Walls said his mother and his fiancee, Camille Kuzilik, have something planned for his celebration, but he doesn’t know what. He said his fiancee is “very good at surprising me because I’m gullible, and I don’t pay attention.”
He said he told them to not go all out for his birthday. But why not? They won’t get another chance for four more years.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.