April Fool’s Day Facts
I hope you had a chance
to play a joke on April Fool’s Day before someone got you first. As teenagers, my brothers and I loved to play April Fool’s
jokes on our mother. She always
believed us - or at least she let us think she did. Then when we had
grandchildren it was always fun to play jokes on them.
Wondering how this all began I did a little research. Here is what I found out – practically
nothing! Actually why or when the 1st day of April was designated
remains a mystery, although historians provide ‘feasible’ explanations. I
can tell you that there are clues in French history. At least here is someone
to blame if you have a joke pulled on you – Pope Gregory XIII and the Julian
calendar. On this calendar, the 1st day of the year began around
March 25th. France adopted the new Gregorian calendar in 1582, which
made the New Year day January 1st.
Here’s the story of
what happened then –
the outlaying rural areas had no knowledge of the change and others refused to
accept the new calendar. Sophisticated Frenchmen called these ignorant peasants
“fools” and played jokes on them, which had something to do with fish. This
then spread to the rest of Europe and voila, April Fool’s Day was born……I think.
At any rate, I’m sorry it falls on a Sunday this year and not
on one of my days at StarShine. I could
have had so much fun with “kids” at the school. It looks like I’ll have to
wait 3 more years for it to fall on the right day.
Meanwhile, have a happy
April Fool’s Day.
By Lois Jamieson
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