5/5/55 - TO - 05/05/05
BY DAN MILLER
(originally posted May 5, 2005)
I am astounded at how clearly I recall what happened exactly 50 years ago.
And while I don't remember anything else from that particular day, I do recall this.
Mrs. Hatcher.... my homeroom teacher.... went to the blackboard and wrote the date, 5/5/55.
She said, "Look at that, 5/5/55... you won't see a date like that again until 6/6/66. I wonder what you'll be doing then."
Her little pondering stuck in my mind, and hung there, for the next 11 years.
On June 6th, 1966, I thought about Mrs. Hatcher.
I had recently moved from Augusta and started working as an announcer at WIS-TV in Columbia, South Carolina, and was the father of a one-month old baby boy.
I looked up from my desk and said to my pal Joe Pinner, our chief announcer, "look, it's 6/6/66, and we won't see such a thing again until 7/7/77. I wonder what we'll all be doing then."
I then told him the story about Mrs. Hatcher, and the blackboard, and 5-5-55.
On July 7, 1977, I was here in Nashville, working at WSM-TV. By then I had added two daughters, and was a single parent.
Amazingly, I recall looking at the calendar that day as well.
Again, Mrs. Hatcher came to mind, and I said to our news director Mike Kettenring, "Look, it's 7/7/77....... wonder what we'll all be doing when 8/8/88 rolls around?"
When 8/8/88 got here, I was meeting with some folks in California, and we were formulating plans for the Pat Sajak Show, that would premiere about 5 months later on CBS. Mrs. Hatcher came up in that conversation as well.
By 9/9/99 I was back in Nashville, anchoring the news here at WSMV, and the father of my fourth child, a 10 month old daughter. My wife, and some of my old friends, listened again (with great patience) to the story about Mrs. Hatcher, and 5/5/55.
Now that we're in the new millennium, the old eleven year cycle for same-digit dates has been broken, but the 21st century offers its own unique numerical patterns.
We've already had 01/01/01, 02/02/02, etc., and here we are at 05-05-05. Eventually, we'll have some wonderfully symmetrical dates like 10/10/10, 11/11/11 and 12/12/12. They'll come much more frequently, at least for awhile.
There are two points to be made in all of this.
First.... you never know where life will take you, in a relatively short amount of time.
And, second.... the life-long staying power of a simple comment or observation by a teacher.
This week I phoned the only Mary Hatcher I could find listed in Augusta.
The recording said her number had been disconnected.
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