2:2:22
Sun, January 30, 2022 
On April 4th, 1944 I was eight years old and attending the little village school, in a place named East Woodhay, in Hampshire in the South of England. (Picture above.) There was a huge build up of American GIs in the area, in preparation for the Normandy Invasion just two months away. WWII would continue another year before coming to an end.
Every school day my teacher would write the date on the blackboard, and we would copy and write it at the top of a fresh page in our notebook. On this morning, teacher pointed out that this particular date was special, it was 4/4/44, and this only happened approximately every eleven years, throughout the century, starting with 1/1/11, ending with 9/9/99, then repeating.
She mentioned the next date this occurred would be 5/5/55, and when this date rolled around, I was 19 years old, and I remembered that day in school eleven years earlier. For some reason this thought has stayed with me throughout my life. 6/6/66 I was 30, and so on. Looking back now it is kind of like a time-lapse view of my life.
And so once more on Wednesday of this week it will be 2/2/22. The next time this will occur will be 3/3/33 and then 4/4/44 which for me is where this all started. The other point worth mentioning is that in the United States the date is written month/day/ year. Most other countries write the date, day/month/year. On these occasions the World is in sync, at least where the date is concerned.
In this digital age many will write the date 02/02/22 which renders the whole idea of this piece useless but serves to remind me that life before the digital age was in many ways, better. Or at least simpler.
I am posting this ahead of the actual day so that you can pass it down to your children, for what its worth. It may seem like a useless piece of trivia, but it actually causes one to reflect back and to look forward, and to do both those can be a good thing.
As a footnote: Just this morning a friend pointed out that later in February, 22nd. 2022, which will be either 2/22/22 or 22/2/22 depending where you are on the globe, it falls on a 2sday.... How many centuries before that happens again?
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Reader Comments (4)
In 200 years it will be 2/22/2222. can't wait
Too bad we missed 11/11/1111
There are a bunch of fun patterns with dates.
edstainledd,
We probably missed that one because it was almost 911 years ago. You were probably thinking of 2011 when there was a 1/1/11 and a 11/11/11. The following year there was a 12/12/12 but I ignored those because they didn't follow the eleven year pattern.
Dave
I was joking.
But the thing is that different people tend to notice different patterns.
I believe that a lot of it has to do with which ones we notice when we are at an impressionable age.