Handy Weekday Counter (HWC, "hook")

© Alan Riley Jones, 2006

(Currently, this is all one long page. I'll break it into more convenient chunks as time permits.)

Did you ever need to figure out the weekday of a date when there was no calendar around? Here is a fun, fast, friendly, and efficient way to find the day of the week for any date past, present, or future on our current Gregorian calendar. (That's the civil calendar we use everyday in most of the Westernized world.) With a couple of slight adjustments, it is equally useful for dates in the old style Julian calendar which preceded the Gregorian. This system literally puts a perpetual calendar at your fingertips. Your left hand becomes a surprisingly fast and easy-to-use calendar "abacus."

The Handy Weekday Counter (HWC, pronounced "hook") uses counting positions around the left hand to keep track of days of the week while you jump and skip your way through centuries, years, months, and days. By offloading the weekday-tracking onto your hand (and motor reflexes), you free up the mind to concentrate on the combination of jumps you'll need to zero in on your chosen date (or "target date"). When you find the target date, the ending hand position tells you its day of the week. With a little practice, the system works with lightning speed.

Extravagant Claim: Once you've learned and practiced the Basic HWC method, you can find the day of week for any date on our Gregorian calendar, easily and reliably, within 30 seconds using only your brain and your hands. You'll only need the most basic ability to add small numbers, to count by increments such as by 100's or by 12's, and to remember a few fun facts about dates. You don't need to divide or multiply anything or find any kind of remainders.

Even More Extravagant Claim: Once you've learned and practiced the Advanced HWC method, you should be able to do the longest example within 15 seconds. And we still use only the most basic arithmetical and memory skills. We'll just include a little more information to remember. But it's all fun and easy.

In fact, I've padded these times slightly. Most of the time you should get there in less than 10 seconds, but I won't stake my claim on it.

The HWC Hand Positions

First let's learn the HWC hand positions, as shown in the chart at left:

  • The five days of the "work week," Monday through Friday, are assigned to the five fingers from thumb to pinkie, left to right as on a printed calendar.
    • thumb = Monday
    • index = Tuesday
    • middle = Wednesday
    • ring = Thursday
    • pinkie = Friday

  • Saturday is assigned to the side (or "end") of the hand below the pinkie, as in "weekend."

  • Sunday is assigned to the palm, as in "Palm Sunday."

  • The seven positions form a continuous circle, proceeding forward in a clockwise direction, and backward in a counter-clockwise direction.

An initial test drive: To gain familiarity with these positions, make a few practice circuits around your hand, using your right index finger to touch each position in turn, one after the other. Make sure you don't skip any positions, especially the Saturday and Sunday positions which may feel less familiar to you as counting positions.

Start carefully, then gradually work up the speed until you can reliably and quickly move around the hand with as little thought as possible. Don't think the weekday names as you move. Don't think finger names or anything else. As wordlessly as possible, just work up your speed touching your way around the hand without missing any positions.

When you are well-practiced moving forward (clockwise), make a few practice circuits in the backward (counter-clockwise) direction. When you are confident in the backward direction, try a few partial circuits and changes of direction until you can zig and zag your way quickly around the circuit without skipping any positions. Always touch consecutive positions. Never think weekday names while you move.

Basic HWC Summary

Here's a quick summary of the Basic HWC system for the Gregorian calendar. You can use this summary as a reference while you learn. We'll explain each of these steps in more detail afterwards.

An Example to Illustrate

On what day of the week was July 20, 1969 (Apollo 11 moon landing)?

Think (date components) Move (without thinking)
16' index
17', 18', 19' back 2 to palm, 2 more to pinkie, 2 more to middle
'12, '24, '36, '48, '60 forward 1 per dozen to ring, pinkie, side, palm, thumb
'64, '68 back 2 to side, 2 more to ring
'69 forward 1 to pinkie
July 11 (Odd Job) stay on pinkie
12, 13, 14 forward to side, palm, thumb
21 stay on thumb
20 back to palm
Ending palm position = Sunday

If the above example is sufficient to explain the system, great. You'll probably still benefit by at least one quick reading of the explanatory sections which follow, on your way to the Julian Calendar and to the Medium and Advanced versons of HWC. But if it doesn't make sense yet, don't be daunted by the shorthand sketch of the system you've seen so far. We'll have more to say that will explain all these steps very easily. It'll just take a lot of words to do it. Don't get discouraged by the long reading. Once you've extracted the concepts, this baby flies! And don't worry about some fictional dates in this system, such as March 0 or January 32. They'll fit in very nicely at the proper time.

Yes, I did promise you a fun, fast, friendly, and efficient system, which I believe it is. But the calendar is a rather multi-layered thing, each layer having its own "personality." No system can make it altogether simple. But I don't think you'll find any system that is easier to retain than this. If you're really good at math, you might find other systems that are faster. But if you don't want to do a lot of dividing and multiplying and finding remainders, then HWC is probably the fastest way you can go.

The trade-off is, you'll have lot's of little things to remember, but each little thing is easy. Just learn the Days first, and get thoroughly comfortable with them. Then move on to the Months until you can find any day in any specific year once you know any one of its dates. When you are confident with Months and Days, expand your horizon to the Years, which will put the entire Basic HWC system under your belt (or hat, as the case may be; or is it glove?). When you've used the Basic system for a while, you might feel you are ready to speed up the process. Try the Medium HWC version, and get it working for you. When you are well-practiced at the Medium version, move on to Advanced HWC. You may never have any interest in the Julian calendar. But if you do, you can adapt any of the three versions of HWC to the Julian calendar by making a couple of slight adjustments. Above all, go at your own pace. Don't go farther than you understand all at once. If you feel overwhelmed, put it away and come back. On the other hand, don't let me hold you back if you are truly ready to breeze through and retain it all. It's up to you.

For learning purposes, let's start with the days of the month first, and work our way out to the larger spans of time. As you'll see, when we use the full-featured system, we will start at the larger spans of time and work our way down to the smaller ones. But the system is easier to learn from the inside out.

The Days

Let's say you know that the 2nd day of August falls on a Wednesday. What weekday is the 29th of August? Chances are you already have a favorite way to figure out the days inside the same month. But let's learn a systematic approach based on the HWC system that may be a good deal faster than your old favorite, and that will also give us some pointers we can use later on. Maybe you've always thought your way through the numeric days and weekdays all at the same time, like "Wednesday the 2nd, Thursday the 3rd, Friday the 4th..." until you make your way to "Monday to 7th." Then you skip on down to "Monday the 28th," because you know that 7 and 28 are both multiples of seven and so they fall on the same day of the week during the same month. Then you finish up with "Monday the 28th, Tuesday the 29th." And there's your answer. Not bad. But let's use that same multiples-of-seven idea with a HWC approach, to see what that will do for us.

This time, we start on the middle finger position, because that is the HWC position for the starting weekday, Wednesday. Now that you have your starting position, don't think about weekday names anymore until you're finished. Only think the numbers. The starting number is 2, because we know Wednesday the 2nd. Here's what you'll think: "2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...28...29." Here are the positions you touch on the hand: middle, ring, pinkie, side, palm, thumb...stay on thumb...index. Try thinking the numbers while touching the positions, even if you have to go slowly at first. Try them again a couple of times until you can count off the numbers position by position, pause to change from 7 to 28 at the thumb, and finish out the last day afterwards. By forgetting about the weekday names, we can work up much more speed, because we're not trying to juggle two parallel sequences of information at the same time. Just count off the numbers, and let the hand positions take care of the weekdays for you. When you arrive at 29, the index position tells you that the answer is Tuesday.

Now let's learn a new idea that will make this example go much, much faster. Instead of counting up to 7, let's count down to zero. The 0th day is one day earlier than the 1st of the month. It's really the last day of the preceding month, but we can borrow it and rename it "0" to help us count in the current month. Day 0 falls on the same weekday as 7, and 14, and 21, and 28. It acts like a multiple of seven. So our same example now works like this: "2, 1, 0...28...29", touching: middle, index, thumb...stay on thumb...index.

Here's how we count from one day of the month to another day in the same month:

You may have a couple of questions at this point. For one thing, what is this "target" business all about? I hope you figured out by context that the "target date" is simply the date whose weekday you are seeking. The other thing is, why did I include 35 if there are at most 31 days in month? Isn't the 31st closer to 28 than to 35? Yes, but 35 will come in handy later when we talk about the different months. If you know the multiples of seven up to 35, you're all set for now and for later.

0 1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Consider this layout of days. It may look something like a calendar month, but it isn't. It's an illustration of the power of the elevator position. I've placed the multiples of seven (up to 28) in the center column so that they look like they fall on Wednesdays. But the same concept works regardless of which weekday the multiples of seven occupy.

  • 0 is nearest 1 - 3
  • 7 is nearest 4 - 10
  • 14 is nearest 11 - 17
  • 21 is nearest 18 - 24
  • 28 is nearest 25 - 31

    • Every day is within three days of a multiple of seven in one direction or the other. No matter what your starting date is, and no matter what your target date is, there is a multiple of seven within three days of each one. The longest move you ever need to make is three days to the elevator, change multiples, and three more days to the target day. But if you go the wrong way and move, let's say, 5 days forward instead of 2 days backward, it's no great loss. You'll still find your way to a correct result. In fact, you might want to try, just for the sake of having done it once, starting on Tuesday the 1st (index), and count out a day at a time all the way through the month to Thursday the 31st (ring). With HWC, even counting out the entire month goes surprisingly fast. So don't get overly worried about counting a few more days than you have to.

    The Weekday

    Once you've found your way to the target date, all you need to do is read the ending HWC hand position as a day of the week, as illustrated in the chart shown earlier. Once again:

    Incidentally, my own worst habit at this point is hastily misreading the index position to be Monday. It's not. It's Tuesday. The thumb is Monday. Maybe you weren't prone to that error until I mentioned it, but it's worth being sure about, especially while you're learning.

    The Months

    So far, all well and good. I trust that by now you can find any day in a month by starting from any other day in the month, and move no more than three times to the elevator, shift mentally, and move no more than three more days to the target date. But what what about the other months? Maybe you know the weekday of a date in one month, but you'd like to find the weekday of a date in another month. How can we do that?

    Let's stay with the same starting date of Wednesday, August 2. What weekday is Christmas in that same year? If you don't mind a lot of drudgery, you could move to the last day of August, call that the 0 of September, move to the last day of September, rename it the 0 of October, and so forth, to bridge your way a month at a time to December, and from there on to the 25th. It would work. But is that how we're going to do it? Of course not. There's a much faster way if you don't mind just a tiny bit of memorization. (Gasp! Did I say the "M" word? Don't panic. I wouldn't suggest it if it weren't easy.)

    Let me finish off the example I started just for a little introductory flavor. Then afterwards I'll lay out the whole year for you. But first, let's go from August 2 to August 8: "2, 1, 0...7...8", middle, index, thumb...thumb...index. August 8 is Tuesday. Because I have learned the specially identified dates in this system, I happen to know that August 8 always falls on the same weekday as December 12. I haven't told you why just yet. But trust me for a moment. If August 8 is an "index finger" day (see how I'm still avoiding weekday names because we're in the middle of an example?) then December 12 is also an "index finger" day during the same year. From here we can go "12, 13, 14...28...27, 26, 25," touching index, middle, ring...stay on ring...middle, index, thumb. December 25 is a Monday (because we ended on the thumb). Now that's much easier than bridging your way from August to December, isn't it? Let's review that whole sequence: "August 2, 1, 0, 7, 8...December 12, 13, 14, 28, 27, 26, 25" while touching middle, index, thumb, (thumb), index, (index), middle, ring, (ring), middle, index, thumb. Try making the HWC moves while looking at just the numbers, and counting them off in the correct direction on the hand, pausing where you shift mentally without moving.

    Some of you may already know the system I'm about to describe. Though the HWC system of hand positions is my own invention, the list of memorized dates for months is borrowed from a widely used weekday method known as Doomsday by Dr. John Horton Conway of Princeton University. The Doomsday method is a very popular system among calendar enthusiasts, and is addressed many places on the web, so I'll be as brief as I can here. If you'd like to see the whole Doomsday method with its math-oriented approach to the other components of the date, search for calendar doomsday on the web. Want to know why it's popular? Because it's easy. The memorized months are easy, anyway. If you're not handy at multiplying and dividing, the HWC counting techniques may be easier for you than Conway's math methods for the years.

    The word "Doomsday" is simply a variable name standing in for one of the seven days of the week. In any year, Doomsday is equated to one and only one weekday, but the specific weekday equated to Doomsday changes from year to year. The value of Doomsday is based on the weekday that corresponds to the last day of February. Whenever August 8 falls on a Tuesday, such as in our example, the last day of February also falls on a Tuesday that year, as do all the other dates we will commit to memory. So we say that, in this year, Doomsday is Tuesday. Dr. Conway refers to the last day of February as "March 0," the date-of-origin for Doomsday in the year. See? That 0 day comes in handy again. You already know what I mean by March 0, because we used the 0 day in our Elevator Method. March 0's real date might be February 28, or it might be February 29, depending on whether the year is a common year or a leap year. ("Common" just means "non-leap.") Now we just need a date in each month which falls on Doomsday, and we can jump directly from one Doomsday date to any other during the same year. They all have the same weekday. If we're lucky, we can find dates which are easy to remember. And guess what? The list of dates Dr. Conway has picked out can be recalled by just remembering four fun facts. Easy! (The dates are Dr. Conway's idea, but the group names such as "Even Steven" are my own.)

    Even Steven: Let's start with the easiest grouping. In the five even-numbered months after March, the day of the month which equals the number of the month falls on Doomsday. These dates can be written 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, and 12/12. The day is "Even Steven" with the month.

    Odd Job: These four odd-numbered months are almost as easy, if you remember this "job related" mnemonic: "I work 9-5 at the 7-11." This simply means that 9 and 5 go together, while 7 and 11 go together, in either order. The dates can be written 5/9, 7/11, 9/5, and 11/7.

    Elevator of March: March 0 is an Elevator date as we've already seen. When you find Doomsday for the year, you can immediately "ride the elevator" in March. You don't have to step in from some other date. March 0 is Dr. Conway's date-of-origin for Doomsday. It's a helpful reminder that it's already on the elevator.

    Last or Leap: Since the last day of February is Doomsday, we use that as our Doomsday starting date for that month. This date is the 28th in a common year, and the 29th in leap year. The rule here is, "Use the normal last day of the month in a common year. Add one day more in leap year." For January, we simply apply the same rule, giving us January 31 in a common year, and January 32 in leap year. Though January 32 is a fictional renaming of February 1 (we don't really add a leap day to January), we can pretend to add 32 as a "leap day" just to use it as a numeric starting point for counting down to the real days in January. And now you see why we included 35 as a multiple of seven. If you want a January date in leap year, you can start on 32, count forward to 35, then ride down to the other multiples of seven in the actual date range of the month.

    Leap Year Rule: At this point, we need to know which years are leap years so that we know which dates to use for January and February. Years which are multiples of 100 are not leap years unless they are also multiples of 400. For all other years, multiples of 4 are leap years. So the full Gregorian Leap Year Rule can be stated like this:

    For good measure, here are the Doomsday entry dates in order:
    January 31 or 32 April 4 July 11 October 10
    February 28 or 29 May 9 August 8 November 7
    March 0 June 6 September 5 December 12

    Now you should be able to start from any known date and weekday combinaton in the year, find Doomsday during that month, change directly to the Doomsday date in the target month, and find the target day, moving from any month to any month in the year. If you know the weekday of any date in the year, then you've got the whole year laid out at your fingertips. (Okay, that's the last "fingertips" remark, I promise.)

    The Years

    Try this alternating pattern of HWC hand moves starting from the index finger: back 2, forward 1, back 2, forward 1. Now starting over at the index position again, let's say you need several of one move before alternating to the next move: back 2, back 2, back 2, forward 1, forward 1, forward 1, forward 1, forward 1, forward 1, forward 1, back 2, back 2, forward 1, forward 1, forward 1. The HWC hand moves for the years occur in alternating sets of moves similar to this example. In fact, the moves shown here are the maximum number of moves you'll ever need to make to find any year on the Gregorian calendar. Start from the index finger position and give them a try: back 2 (three times), then forward 1 (seven times), then back 2 (twice), then forward 1 (three times). You have just found Doomsday for the year 1995 (index=Tuesday). The same pattern repeats every 400 years, so 1595 takes the same number of moves from the same starting position to the same ending position, as does 2395, 2795, and so on. All of these years' Doomsdays are Tuesdays. All the other years in each 400-year cycle can be found in fewer moves.

    Of course you'll want to know how we are moving through the years while we make these moves. Since the Gregorian calendar repeats its weekday alignment every 400 years in perpetuity, we just need the Dooomsday of the year which is a multiple of 400 (which is always Tuesday) as a starting point. From there, we move ahead by 100's, by 12's, by 4's, and by 1's. We are always moving forward through the years, though some of the corresponding hand moves are backward. The years still advance while we make those backward weekday moves. At each level of increment, we go as high as we can while never going past the target year, then we move on to the next smaller-sized increment. If we get to an increment level at which there are too few years remaining to add those years even once, then we omit that level and go to the next-smaller level. In so doing, we make the right combination of increments (and corresponding HWC hand moves) to find Doomsday for the target year, like this:

    The Basic HWC System from Start to Finish

    That's all there is to it! Here's the same summary we saw before:

    Let's take a maximum example. If you can find October 18, 1995, then you'll be able to find any Gregorian date in the same number of moves or less:

    The Julian Calendar

    The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, and was first used as of October 15 (Gregorian) of that year, but only in a few places. The British Empire (including her American colonies) adopted the new calendar as of September 14, 1752. (By now you should be able to find the weekdays of those two Gregorian dates. I'll tell you the answers at the end of this section.)

    Before the Gregorian calendar was introduced, European countries and their empires used the Julian calendar, invented by Julius Caesar and implemented by the Roman Empire from 45 BCE onward. But due to misapplication of the leap year rule in its first few decades of use, we cannot start our system any earlier than March 1, 4 CE. That year may or may not have been a leap year (scholars disagree), but year 8 CE was certainly a leap year. And so the calendar can be traced back in a continuous system to March 1, 4 CE, the day following the last date of uncertainty.

    In its outward appearance, the Julian calendar looks identical to the Gregorian. It has the same twelve months of the same lengths, running against the same seven weekdays. But the leap year rule is very slightly different, and the two calendars have been anywhere from 10 to 13 days apart from each other ever since the Gregorian calendar began, and they will continue to diverge as future centuries roll by. So at any time, the date in the Gregorian calendar is a bit in advance of the date simultaneously being observed in the Julian calendar.

    The Julian calendar's leap years occur every four years without exception. Even the multiples of 100 are leap years, every time. This means that every Julian century is the same size, being one day larger than the "common centuries" we have been counting in the Gregorian calendar. So we only need to move back 1 weekday per century.

    To adjust our system to the Julian calendar, only two points need to be changed:

    If you wanted to, you could start on the palm at 000 (year "zero hundred"), then count off centuries one position at a time counter-clockwise until you reach the target century. But you'd be returning to the palm at every multiple of 700.

    Once you've found the target Julian century, proceed through the years using the Dozens, Quads, and Singles just as before, pick the Doomsday entry date for the target month, and count your way to the target day, just as you would with a Gregorian date.

    For the Julian calendar, all century limits are lifted, and you may cross the century at will using Dozens and Quads, though you shouldn't have to. But you still may not add more than three Singles after the last Quad, since that is a leap year limitation, not a century limitation.

    (To answer the questions raised in the first paragraph of this section, Gregorian date October 15, 1582, was a Friday, while Gregorian date September 14, 1752, was a Thursday. They were immediately preceded by Julian dates Thursday, October 4, 1582, and Wednesday, September 2, 1752, respectively in their respective countries of use.)

    Julian Example: October 12, 1492, Columbus' first landing in America

    Medium HWC

    To jazz this thing up even more, we take advantage of the 28-year "Solar Cycle" and introduce it as an additional increment level for the years in a century. The Solar Cycle is a 28-year repetition of the weekday pattern of dates. It is limited to the same century on the Gregorian calendar, but is unlimited across centuries in the Julian calendar. Since Gregorian March 7, 2000, was a Tuesday, March 7 will also fall on Tuesdays in 2028, in 2056, and in 2084. For all years, the same date occurs on the same weekday at intervals of 28, 56, and 84 years later, as long as you stay inside the Gregorian century (or without limit on the Julian calendar).

    Here is a summary of Medium HWC, using the Solar Cycle.

    You'll soon find that the Solars and Dozens fall into the following sequence

    '00     '28    '56     '84
  '12     '40    '68     '96
    '24     '52    '80

    That is, from '00, move forward one position to '12 and another position to '24. From '28, ahead one to '40 and again to '52. From '56, move ahead one to '68 and again to '80. And from '84 move ahead one to '96. As many as two Quads (2 back each) can fall after the Solar year and after the first Dozen, but no Quads are needed after the second Dozen, and no Quads are allowed after '96 (Gregorian).

    Advanced HWC

    By combining the four-century Gregorian cycle with the Solar cycle years, we have 16 potential starting years in each 400-year Gregorian cycle.

    With practice this becomes a near simultaneous action. For example, for the last few years of the 1900's, you can begin directly on 1984 = middle. In actuality, you are first choosing 19' = middle, then shifting in your mind quickly to '84 = middle. But it's almost like pulling 1984 out of the air all at once while you are moving the middle position. The same middle position serves for 1900, 1928, and 1956 as well. For Civil War dates, start 1856 = pinkie. If you are looking for the Gregorian version of Washington's birth date in 1732, start 1728 = palm. (If you wanted Washington's Julian birthdate, you'd still need to start at 14' = palm, and count back 1 per century to 17' = ring, changing to Solar year '28 = ring.)

    Here is a summary of Advanced HWC, using the 16 Gregorian starting points (but retaining the century count for Julian calendar).

    The 16 starting points will immediately place you no more than 27 years before any Gregorian target year. At most, you are no more than 15 positional counts (touches) and two mental shifts away from any date in the Gregorian calendar. And you never need to divide any number by 12, or by 7.

    I have shown the Gregorian limits for the year increments regardless of which calendar you are using, even though you could cross some of these limits on the Julian calendar without creating an error. But for efficiency, plan on staying within limits on both calendars. The system is simpler and easier to remember if you keep it consistent.

    Want a little more explanation on the starting points? In the listing below, pick the lefthand digits of your target year and point to the HWC hand position shown for that century, and at the same time append (in your mind) the Solar Cycle digits that are highest without exceeding the target year. This illustrates the 16 Gregorian starting points in practice.

    An Advanced Example: Washington's Birthdate on Both Calendars

    When George Washington was born, the British Empire (and thus the colony of Virginia) was still using the old style Julian calendar. His birth date as recorded at the time was February 11, 1732. (Actually it was double-dated as "11 February 1731/32" in the family Bible, but we won't go into the differing start-of-year dates in this discussion. The Julian calendar date as we would normally understand it was 11 February 1732.) Then in 1751, Parliament voted to adopt the "new style" calendar, which was simply the Gregorian calendar without the Gregorian name, and in the process 11 days were dropped from September, 1752, to catch up to the Gregorian date. So the anniversary of Washington's birth would have changed to February 22 to keep it at full years after his birth. However, sources disagree as to whether Washington himself continued to celebrate February 11, or whether he changed to February 22 following the practice of many of his contemporaries. Eventually, the Federal holiday known as Washington's Birthday was established on February 22. (It has since been superseded by Presidents Day on the 3rd Monday in February.)

    Let's use Advanced HWC to find the weekday of Washington's date of birth on both calendars.

    February 11, 1732 O.S. ("Old Style," meaning Julian calendar)

    February 22, 1732 N.S. ("New Style," equivalent to Gregorian calendar)

    If you notice a valid shortcut, by all means take it. It only takes a moment to move from 29 back to 28, ride to 21, and go forward to 29. But if you notice that 22 is exactly seven days before 29, there's no need to move at all.

    A Future Example: Armistice Centennial

    The Armistice ending World War I was signed November 11, 1918, which might be an interesting weekday to find. But instead, let's find the weekday of its upcoming Centennial in 2018.

    Armistice Centennial, November 11, 2018.

    Finding the Numeric Date of a Known Weekday

    Here's an opposite type of problem to those we've been working so far. Suppose you want to find the date of Thanksgiving in 2009. In this case, you know that it's the fourth Thursday in November, and you want to know its numeric day-of-month. When you search for an "ordinal weekday" such as fourth Thursday, you can first find the weekday of the "that-numbered" multiple of seven during the month. For example, to find fourth Thursday, we would look for November 28 (4 times 7) in 2009. The 28th would be the last possible date on which fourth Thursday (or fourth whichever-weekday) could occur. We simply find the 28th, and if that's not the right weekday, we then count backward a day at a time to the weekday we are seeking to find its numeric date.

    Fourth Thursday in November, 2009 (Thanksgiving):

    In this example, when we count back to the ring position, it is the ring position that tells us to stop, because we were looking for a Thursday. Instead of reading the HWC position, we take the number we've counted at that position as the date we're seeking. Here are the date ranges for each "ordinal weekday."

    To find the first occurrence of a weekday, check the weekday of the 7th, then countdown to the right weekday as necessary. For the second occurrence, check the 14th. The third occurrence, check the 21st. Fourth occurrence, check the 28th. Count back from any of these date if that is not the right weekday. If you are looking for the fifth occurrence of a weekday, such as fifth Sunday, realize first of all that there might not be one. To see if there is one, check the 28th (which cannot be the fifth occurrence) and immediately count forward to 29, then on as necessary to the end of the month. If the weekday doesn't fall in the actual date range starting from the 29th through end of the month, then there is not a fifth of that weekday in that month.

    Mother's Day, 2007, the Second Sunday in May (check the 14th)

    Here's a slightly different example. Memorial Day is the last Monday in May. It could be the fourth Monday or the fifth Monday, depending on whether there is a fifth Monday or not. In this case, check the 31st of May, and if the 31st is not a Monday, count down from the 31st back to Monday to find its numeric date. Similarly to find the last occurrence of a weekday (possibly fourth or fifth) in any month, find its last day whatever that number may be, and if that's not the right weekday, count down from there to the weekday you are seeking.

    Memorial Day, 2011

    After finding the 31st on the index position, we count back to the thumb because we are seeking Monday. This tells us that Memorial Day, 2011, will be the 30th. Of course, if you're alert, you can catch the fact that the 30th is on the thumb before you even get to 31.

    Fond Adieu and Keep On HWC-ing

    Finding weekdays is fun, and can be addictive. Whenever I watch a movie or TV show that mentions a date, I always feel compelled to find it's weekday to see what flavor it might add to the story. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), for example, begins by telling us the date is "Friday, December 11," but we are not told the year. A quick check using HWC tells us that the nearest year to 1960 having that date and weekday alignment is 1959. (December 11 is one day before Doomsday, so it must be a year with Doomsday on Saturday. Advanced HWC gives us 1956=middle, then count the Single years forward.) If you follow Marion Crane's (Janet Leigh's) timeline on her way to the Bates Motel, you'll find that the famous shower scene takes place on the evening of December 12...DOOMSDAY! Now that's flavor! Another coincidental Hitchcock/Doomsday connection occurs in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), in which the fateful Albert Hall concert and the climactic rescue at the embassy both take place on June 6...(DOOMSDAY)!

    My last movie example comes from Forrest Gump (1994), in which Forrest begins a graveside speech with, "You died on a Saturday, and I had you placed here under our tree." But the headstone shows a death date of March 22, 1982, which was not a Saturday. I'll let you figure that one out for yourself.

    Enjoy!

    © Alan Riley Jones, 2006, All Rights Reserved.
    Created on ... August 05, 2006
    (And now you can figure out its day of the week.)

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