extracting date information?

Any hints or clues on this one?
Using Postgresql6.3 and PHP2

I have a simple database with a list of events, one of the fields is of
the data type "date".

When I call this information from the database, it prints out the date
in the form of "1998-05-05"

What I would really like to do, when this date is retrieved, Is to
format it something like "Thursday May 5, 1998" Anything more
descriptive than "1998-05-05" would be great.

I've tried using the "date(format,date)" call from PHP by saving the
date in a variable, then:
echo date("YMdl","$thedate");

But when it is displayed it always prints out this date:
"1969Dec31Wednesday"

Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

Kevin

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