Happy April Fool's Day

A day set aside for jokes, pranks and all sorts of kooky hijinks. Sounds like something that the kings' jesters in history came up with. We don't acknowledge April Fool's in my household thanks to my wonderful brother, Ti. A few years ago, when Caitlin was about 15, Ti decided to tell my father that she was pregnant and she didn't have the foggiest clue who it belonged to. Ha-ha funny joke, right? Not so much when it nearly caused my daddy to have a heart attack. (He really did have chest pains and I wanted to cut Ti's tongue out!)

But a day full of jokes and fun! How did it come about? Centuries ago, April 1st was considered to be New Year's Day. In Geoffrey Chaucer's monumental 1392 work, The Canterbury Tales, the characters celebrated the day with all sorts of foolishness. It was a holiday so why not have fun?

But in the 16th century, the powers that be decided that January 1 should be the start of the new year and decreed that everyone should follow the new calendar. The common people had a hard time wrapping their heads around the change so anybody who still referred to April 1st as New Year's was seen as an April Fool. If they were so gullible that they didn't know when the new year started, then they deserved to have all sorts of pranks played on them. The tradition has continued down through the years and every year on April Fool's Day, pregnancy scares cause men around the world to have heart failure (and all sorts of other fun too!)