A Look At April Fool's Day

When we were kids, we LOVED April 1st. Spent days or weeks coming up with the one prank that would shock, stun, piss off,  or have a reaction of total hilarity.  Sometimes they were not funny.  The guy who jumped off a bridge to scare his girlfriend and realized he miscalculated the length of his bungie cord.  Oops.  It goes back to the old saying of what a Redneck (excuse me, NASCAR American) says before he dies is....."Hey, Hold my beer and watch this"...

Anyway, straight from Wikipedia is a paragraph or two on the origins of April Fools Day...just in case you were wondering. 

The custom of setting aside a day for the playing of harmless pranks upon one's neighbor is recognized everywhere.^{[1][dubious – discuss]} Some precursors of April Fools' Day include the Roman festival of Hilaria.

Bertha R. McDonald, in Harper's Weekly explicated an origin of April Fools' Day, stating that some "authorities gravely back with it to the time of Noah and the ark, and the London Public Advertiser of March 13, 1769, prints the following paragraph concerning this theory: 'The mistake of Noah sending the dove out of the ark before the water had abated, on the first day of April, and to perpetuate the memory of this deliverance it was thought proper, whoever forgot so remarkable a circumstance, to punish them by sending them upon some sleeveless errand similar to that ineffectual message upon which the bird was sent by the patriarch'."^[2]

In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392), the "Nun's Priest's Tale" is set Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two.^[3] Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon.^[4] Thus the passage originally meant 32 days after March, i.e. 2 May,^[5] the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which took place in 1381. Readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean "32 March", i.e. April 1.^{[citation needed][6]} In Chaucer's tale, the vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox.

In 1508, French poet Eloy d'Amerval referred to a poisson d’avril (April fool, literally "Fish of April"), a possible reference to the holiday.^[7] In 1539, Flemish poet Eduard de Dene wrote of a nobleman who sent his servants on foolish errands on April 1.^[5] In 1686, John Aubrey referred to the holiday as "Fooles holy day", the first British reference.^[5] On April 1, 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to "see the Lions washed".^[5]

In the Middle Ages, New Year's Day was celebrated on March 25 in most European towns.^[8] In some areas of France, New Year's was a week-long holiday ending on April 1.^[9][10] Some writers suggest that April Fools' originated because those who celebrated on January 1 made fun of those who celebrated on other dates.^[9] The use of January 1 as New Year's Day was common in France by the mid-16th century,^[5] and this date was adopted officially in 1564 by the Edict of Roussillon.

In the Netherlands, the origin of April Fools' Day is often attributed to the Dutch victory at Brielle in 1572, where the Spanish Duke Álvarez de Toledo was defeated. "Op 1 april verloor Alva zijn bril." is a Dutch proverb, which can be translated to: "On the first of April, Alva lost his glasses." In this case, the glasses ("bril" in Dutch) serve as a metaphor for Brielle. This theory, however, provides no explanation for the international celebration of April Fools' Day

AND THESE OF COURSE  (copy and paste)

http://tiphero.com/top-10-worst-april-fools-day-fails-of-all-time/

HAVE A GREAT DAY

STOP CLOWNING AROUND!

When I was a small kid, I LIVED for the Bozo the Clown show.  Bozo was cool and happy and educational, and had Georgio  Tsoukalos hair WAY before it was cool.  Bozo ROCKED!  There were clowns at birthday parties, at the circus, (though that's when I started to get a little freaked out by them. How could all those guys fit in a mini cooper?  Then, of course, the Rodeo Clowns (Pol. Correct term is now Bull fighter) at the rodeo. (Not pronounced ro-day-oh). 

Now, all of a sudden there are creepy clowns everywhere, and they are scaring the shit out of people.  My deep creepiness with clowns started when I read IT by Stephen King.  I can only think these are all King fans touting the new movie. But, hey, If you are scaring the crap out of people by dressing up as a clown, no one is going to go to the movie.  Why would they when you are giving it to them live. And by the way, Someone in large shoes is going to get shot. No really.  It's all fun and games until you scare the crap out of the wrong second amendment card carrier.  And of course, if and when that happens, it won't be the clown's fault.  I mean, who would shoot Bozo?

Now,  Target is removing clown masks from the Halloween line up.  (I will resist the urge to insert any politically driven replacement suggestions). Bummer. I guess we will have to go back to JUST PAINTING OUR FACES LIKE WE DID WHEN I WAS A KID.

I did an interview with the original Bozo the Clown, Bob Bell, many years ago when I was a radio show host.  Very pleasant and not scary at all. A little creepy when he came to the station in full make up. It's RADIO..... Aside from that, I felt like a kid again with my hero, Bozo the Clown.