Lost in the excitement and pageantry of MLB’s Opening Day is the fact that yesterday was April Fool’s Day.
Then again, maybe the losing teams felt like yesterday was a cruel prank played on them by the infamous “Baseball Gods.”
In any case, April Fool’s Day came and went and I’m happy to report that I am none the worse for wear. In fact, other than a few half-hearted Facebook attempts I saw and read, there really wasn’t much hubbub about the day. I did hear that the White House did a little funny but until I re-read about it, I didn’t catch the details.
In other words, the general population seemed to give a collective shrug of the shoulders yesterday. I’m sure there might have been a few good-natured pranks in the schools except that, locally (and in many other places around the country) yesterday was one last day off – tacked on at the end of the Easter holiday and last week’s spring break.
Holly tells me that there is an April Fool’s custom in France called “Poisson d’avril,” in which a paper fish is taped to the back of an unsuspecting victim during that country’s observance of the day. This may, in part, lend some credence to the urban legend that April Fool’s day originated in France at the time it switched its calendar to the current format (moving New Year’s Day from this time of year to the earlier January time).
Or not.
No one knows for sure if this is really the place where April Fool’s got its start…but as I posted yesterday, Opening Day of the baseball season does feel like a sort of New Year’s Day to some of us.
I don’t know that I ever really fashioned any sort of elaborate April Fool’s Day pranks. I do seem to remember that sometime way back one of my friends and I may have donned the Bush and Reagan masks for a little Aprils Foolery.
I don’t recall any of the details.
Otherwise, it suits me fine that the calendar now says April 2 instead of April 1.
JG
(Source: cbsnews.com)
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