[R] lapply to change variable names and variable values

[Simon Kiss]

Hi: I'm sure this is a very easy problem. I've consulted Data Manipulation With R and the R Book and can't find an answer.

Sample list of data frames looks as follows: 

.xx<-list(df<-data.frame(Var1=rep('Alabama', 400), Var2=rep(c(2004, 2005, 2006, 2007), 400)), df2<-data.frame(Var1=rep('Tennessee', 400), Var2=rep(c(2004,2005,2006,2007), 400)), df3<-data.frame(Var1=rep('Alaska', 400), Var2=rep(c(2004,2005,2006,2007), 400)) )

I would like to accomplish the following two tasks. 
First, I'd like to go through and change the names of each of the data frames within the list
to be 'State' and 'Year'

Second, I'd like to go through and add one year to each of the 'Var2'  variables.

Third, I'd like to then delete those cases in the data frames that have values of Var2 (or Year) values of 2008.

I could do this manually, but my data are actually bigger than this, plus I'd really like to learn. I've been trying to use lapply, but I can't get my head around how it works: 
  .xx<- lapply(.xx, function(x) colnames(x)<-c('State', 'Year')
just changes the actual list of data frames to a list of the character string ('State' and 'Year')  How do I actually change the underlying variable names?

I'm grateful for your suggestions!
Simon Kiss

*********************************
Simon J. Kiss, PhD
Assistant Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University
73 George Street
Brantford, Ontario, Canada
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Cell: +1 905 746 7606