"April Fools' Day"

 This is sent a day early, as later this morning we leave for New Hampshire to attend a memorial service tomorrow for a beloved brother-in-law of sixty-one years.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“April Fools’ Day”

April 1, 2023

 

“The first of April is the day we remember

what we are the other 364 days of the year.”

                                                                                                                Attributed to Mark Twain (1835-1910) 

 

Growing up, we loved April Fools’ Day: “Your fly’s unbuttoned!” My fingers reached for the front of my trousers. “April Fool! Made you look, you dirty crook/Stole your mother’s pocketbook!”

 

Like “success,” the origin of April Fools’ Day has many fathers. For a few, it refers to the time when Pluto, king of Hades, carried off Proserpina, daughter of Ceres, goddess of agriculture. Ceres followed the sound rather than her daughter – a fool’s errand. Others suggest the date resembles Hilaria, a festival held in ancient Rome in late March, or India’s celebration of Holi, which welcomes spring. But the likeliest origin is the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The new calendar changed the start of the year from April 1 to January 1. The change was adopted by Catholic Europe but not Protestant, at least not immediately. It was not until 1752 that England accepted January 1^st as the start of the new year. 

 

Who’s that girl behind you?

 

The best April Fools’ prank of all time, according to the Museum of Hoaxes, a website created in 1997 by Alex Boese of California, was the April 1, 1957 “Swiss Spaghetti Harvest,” perpetrated by the BBC show Panorama. They reported that thanks to a mild winter the dreaded Spaghetti Weevil had been virtually eliminated, so farmers enjoyed a bumper crop. Many viewers were taken in. How, they asked, does one grow a spaghetti tree? The answer: “Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tomato sauce tin, and hope for the best.”

 

There have been other fun ones. The April 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated announced that the New York Mets had acquired a pitcher named Sidd Finch who could throw a fast ball 168mph, an art he mastered in a Tibetan monastery. Ecstatic Mets fans were disappointed to learn that the story had been written by George Plimpton who left a clue in the sub-heading of the article. On April 1, 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page ad in six major newspapers, which claimed the company had purchased the Liberty Bell and renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged people called the National Park Service in Philadelphia. A few hours later Taco Bell admitted it was an April Fools’ joke. The best subsequent line came when President Clinton’s Press Secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale: “The Lincoln Memorial has also been sold and will now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.”

 

Why is there a parrot on your shoulder?

 

Our childhood pranks had none of that originality. We knew, despite being aware of the day, that we would fall victim, lending truth to the old Welch proverb: “If every fool wore a crown, we should all be kings.”

 

Hey, your shoe’s untied!

 

April Fool!