No Foolin!

Is It Just ME, or do you, too, ponder ho certain “things” have become part of the social mainstream?

Well, as today is April 1st, I started wondering how this day became known as April Fools Day… Here’s what I found…

Blame Pope Gregory XIII and a calendar if you find yourself the target of an April fools joke. Until the 1500s, the Julian calendar was used to mark the days.  The first day of the year began around March 25th on the Julian calendar. This date coincided with beginnings of spring and annual spring celebrations of light returning to the earth. France adopted the new Gregorian calendar in 1582, which made the first day of the new year January first.

The story goes that peasants in the outlying rural areas had no knowledge of the change. Others refused to accept the new fangled calendar.  New Year’s week, March 25th to April first continued to be celebrated. The sophisticated Frenchmen dubbed their ignorant compatriots, “fools.”

The “fools” were sent bogus invitations to non-existent New Year’s celebrations on April first. The “fools” became known as “poisson d’Avril” translated to April fish. Why fish? Young fish lack the experience to escape the hook. 

A favorite hoax was to attach a paper fish to the back of someone without his or her knowledge.  The practice of playing jokes on others on April 1st spread to the rest of Europe.

And, here we are today. The goal is to play a joke on someone before they play a joke on you; have fun.

So, IS it Just Me, or are you, too, feeling just a bit less foolish now that this information has been shared? Ah, the power of sharing information!

 Women of leadership are nobody’s fools!