2/2/22!

 

This is the eighth time in my life that the date has been a striking one, by some criteria.

The first was 6/6/66. I was eight years old then and would have been aware of people around me talking about it, but it wouldn't have meant anything to me at that age and I don't remember it. I was aware of 7/7/77, though. That was during the summer between my high school graduation and first year of college. Seven is a lucky number in the west and I remember hearing about people betting on the seventh horse in the seventh race at horse tracks on that day, and others playing 777 in states that had legal daily numbers games. 

As a child learning numbers, I liked writing the number 8 and I looked forward to the year 8/8/88. When that day came (it was a Monday), however, I was living in Japan and teaching English and I had no reason to write the date. Nonetheless, that was, looking back, my best year ever. I was youngish, 30, had hit my stride in my job, which paid well, and for a few days it looked like a woman I was nuts about might be nuts about me. (She was, a little, but not enough and we never did more than kiss. She married someone else in 1989.) 

Another good day was 9/9/99, a Thursday. I was working as a reporter for a weekly newspaper and at the time it looked like I might have a somewhat successful career in journalism, despite having entered the field relatively late in life, when I was in my late thirties. I did not, but I didn't know it then. The paper I worked for came out on Thursdays then, meaning my deadline was on Wednesday afternoon, so Thursdays were a relaxed day for me and my fellow employees, a time to sit around the office and think of what stories to cover for the next edition.

The beginning of a new century provides more special dates than the rest of it because of the aughts: 1/1/01, 2/2/02, etc. Now we're back to the dates that get mentioned coming just every eleven years.

I miss being young enough that exceptional dates seemed somehow important to me.