manipulate text inside block

I have outsmarted myself.
I have for years used Rtext for my date in my titleblock.
$(edtime, 0, mo"-"dd"-"yy)
so when I make plots during the design process, the date in the
titleblock is current.
then at the end of the job, I am supposed to explode the Rtext so the
date stops updating.
but I usually forget to explode the block, explode the Rtext and
redefine the block.
is there a way to access the data in a block sans exploding it?
when last I had time to play, I was working with making views more
automatically, and had some success massaging the view tables.
I was thinking at the time that perhaps there was a similar approach to
blocks.