APRIL FOOLISHNESS

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year. -- Mark Twain

Nobody knows for sure how April Fool’s Day came into existence, but the story that sounds best to me is as follows. Somewhere back 400 hundred years ago, the New Year's Day celebration culminated on April 1 in conjunction with the first days of spring’s new beginnings of planting seeds for that year’s harvest. When Charles IX reformed the calendar and adopted the Gregorian Calendar, New Year’s Day was changed to January 1. Not everyone readily accepted the change and they continued to celebrate New Year’s on April 1. Those "backward" individuals over the years were ridiculed and called “fools” for not accepting the change and became the butt of numerous jokes and sent on “fools errands” the great-great-great grandfather of the today’s prank.

Looking foolish does the spirit good.-- John Updike

April Fool’s Day has developed into an international tradition, each country devoting and observing the prankster foolishness and trickery in their own cultural style. For Americans, it begins at age four with the simple yelling of “April Fool” for unrelated bizarre reasons, to the following year’s telling someone “your shoe’s untied,” and eventually morphing into the elementary school-age mean “Kick Me!” signs. As we mature, our foolishness and inner pranksterness as well develops, especially after an education from the receiving side of a few jokes. Remember the days of… the classic Woopie Cushion; dropping a little food coloring in the milk carton; setting a roommate’s alarm clock an hour ahead; lacing the sugar bowl with salt; rubber-banding the dish washing sprayer on; short-sheeting beds; gluing quarters to the sidewalk; applying clear cellophane across the toilet bowl…and the list goes on and on and on. By the time a person is in college the practical jokes intensify and become considerably more profound and elaborate. I’ve known entire families who conspire for weeks to prank a fellow family member.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.-- Mark Twain

However, the Internet is quickly becoming the largest and meanest prankster. I keep getting hundreds of garbage e-mails regarding patches and pills to “make a giant out of a dwarf” to “keep her happy.” Now one of three things is happening: 1) there are a whole lot of Peeping Toms outside my window; 2) they’ve ALL been talking to my wife, or 3) they got my e-mail address from a kindhearted, concerned, or paranoid acquaintance/friend of mine. Now the first two I know aren’t happening, so the third must be where all this foolishness resides. The virus hoax’s, veteran homecomings, stop buying gas schemes, and the gushingly warm and fuzzy “friendship” notes that all “have to be forwarded” so the “chain won’t be broken” or “you’ll get bad luck if not sent to ten other people in next three minutes” are the culprits. People are foolish to actually believe all this “stuff” (stated politely) that’s been circulated on the Internet for years and years.

However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him.-- Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux

I love the e-mails where they say I’ve won the lottery, or have stashed away government money, and need my bank account info to share in the wealth and/or money to establish trust (hint: foolishness transforms into stupidity if you respond, how's that old saying go, "A fool and his money are easily parted” ). Many seemingly safer e-mails sound sincere and look credible aren’t as innocent and trustworthy as they depict. After circulating through thousands of individuals who modify, change, and add to them, the original truth is long gone and underhandedness is afoot. I can’t count how many times my address has been forwarded without my consent and is now in the hands of God-only-knows who. I know I’m not the only one who receives over 100 e-mails a day, averaging three that are legit and the rest SPAM. Hey, maybe one of these days I’ll actually benefit from one of those so-called “urgent”, “real patch”, “generic Cialis” messages…HA, not in this life!

A fool must now and then be right by chance.-- Cowper

Unlike the foolish untruths floating around cyberspace, Gold Country Families E-Magazine is in fact truthful and filled with honest travel and vacation destinations, leisure and entertainment activities, and as well straightforward enjoyment and fun. Our writers are parents and grandparents who have “been there and done that”, thus removing the ambiguity and mystery of traveling somewhere. Consequently, you as a reader become a smart traveler and not the fool!

It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and leave no doubt.--Mark Twain

Twain's comment noted, enough said. Stay alert on April first.

Patrick Witz
Editor/Publisher
Gold Country Families E-Magazine
A FREE Internet Travel, Entertainment, & Leisure Magazine
editor@goldcountryfamilies.com
http://www.goldcountryfamilies.com

Post edited by: abuzzwitz, at: 2008/03/20 18:49