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F r o n t i s p i e c e
This Palindromic Year
By Karl Keating
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This Rock
Volume 13, Number 7
 September 2002 
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This is the last palindromic year any of us will live to see. You may file that under "Facts, Practically Useless."
Not sure what a palindromic year is? Hints: The last one was 1991, the one before that was 1881, and the next one will be 2112. A palindrome is a word that is spelled the same way forward and backward, so a palindromic year is one you can read from the left or the right.
From here on out, until the turn of the next millennium, a palindromic year will occur every 110 years. I feel safe in predicting that no one reading this column will be around in 2112, which means you may as well enjoy what is left of this year.
So far as I can tell, there is no significance, biblical or secular, to a palindromic year. At best such a year is a small mathematical curiosity, so small it is not even up to the level of the Fibonacci Sequence (in which each successive integer is the sum of the two previous: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 . . .). I worked backward through the palindromic years of the just-closed second millennium, and I was unable to think of anything particularly significant that happened in any of those years.
Of course, every year has its share of events that have some lasting impact, but in none of those years did anything earthshaking occur. None of those years will conjure up important events by the mere mention of the year, the way that 1066, 1492, and 1776 do.
Come to think of it, maybe that is the significance of palindromic years. Maybe they are fated to be dull. Given what happened in 2001, we might be forgiven for hoping for a dull year. Dull is usually safe. Dull years allow us to consolidate. They allow for spring cleanings, not just of our homes but of ourselves.
About twice a year I do a spring cleaning of my den. Such cleanings are not confined to the spring. They occur whenever I find myself with nothing else to do. They are dull but satisfying activities everything in its place and a place for everything. I never fool myself into thinking the disarray will not return-it always does-but for a few days I can lean back, survey my little domain, and pronounce it orderly. It is a comforting feeling.
When I do my spring cleaning, I spend hours sorting through papers, tossing some and filing others. At first, there seems to be no progress. Handling one piece of paper seems to accomplish nothing, but by the end of the long, repetitive process a little miracle has occurred. It is like removing months' worth of weeds, one at a time, and discovering a fine garden underneath.
It could not hurt, in this dull palindromic year, to engage in a spiritual spring cleaning. One never knows what might be found underneath the clutter.
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