Old calendars work just fine in new year

You are unlikely to use that old VCR instructional tape that shows how to install an eight-track player.

It’s time to put it in the trash.

That pizza coupon on your fridge expired in 2014.

It’s time to put it in the recycling.

And that 2007 calendar?

It’s time to put it on the wall.

This is an exercise we’ve done the past couple of years around Jan. 1, but it is worth noting that calendar grids repeat themselves regularly. They mostly follow six-year and 11-year intervals. (That’s when the year has 365 days.)

So, the 2007 day-and-date grid is back in business in 2018. Also, the 2001 and 1990 calendars will work just as well.

Cyrilla Gleason of Vancouver is reaching even deeper into the past. The third-generation collector, who has more than 90 calendars in her files, is bringing a 1945 calendar out of hibernation.

While many people rely on digital technology to mark their minutes and hours, their days and months, “I like to see relationships,” Gleason said.

When she sees the standalone date on a digital readout, she said, “I don’t see how it relates to other days in the month.”

Even when the days and dates align, a one-more-time-around calendar is not always a perfect match; many religious holidays are determined by the lunar calendar.

Leap years also are challenges because they cycle around at a much slower rate, but we won’t have to worry about that for two more years.

And as far as that 2017 calendar goes, don’t be in any rush to get rid of it. It can go back on the wall in 2023.