problem with date and to_char

I am a little stumped.
postgresql 7.1.3
suse linux 7

I have a database with

CREATE TABLE "fc_communication" ("acode" character varying(12),"conversation" text,"contactdate" date

CREATE TABLE "comm_date" ("lastcontact" timestamp with time zone DEFAULT 'now' NOT NULL,Constraint "comm_date_pkey"
PrimaryKey ("lastcontact")
 

When I update fc_communication I also (without a trigger) update 
comm_date with a sep  

update comm_date set lastcontact = 'now';

it works beautifully if I do a psql
'select * from comm_date;'

2002-01-08 16:16:03

I always get the last moment that someone updated the communications file

however what I want to do is:
SELECT to_char(lastcontact, 'Month DD, YYYY   HH:MM') from comm_date;


January   08, 2002   04:01

why is this 04:01?

Every time I do this I get the very first date (that no longer exists). 
Why do I get different results. I expect 'select *' is the base and 
everything else is a varient.

Ted
tedpet@symcom.com