Easter / April Fool's

[Rvaughn]

Happy Easter Fool's Day, y'all! First time since April 1, 1956.

[Haruo]

I meant to look that up. I was pretty sure I didn't remember it having happened before, though there were years in there where between my agnosticism and my alcoholism I might not have paid enough attention to Easter to notice. As it was, I had just turned two and while I may have known about Easter (and the hidden eggs it brings) I rather doubt if I'd learned about April Fool's Day yet.

[Rvaughn]

Oddly enough (though there is apparently some rhyme and reason) it occurred several times in the 20th century before our long dry spell -- 1923, 1934, and 1945. Apparently this year is the beginning of another "trifecta".


(not sure what happened to 2051!)

BTW, my sister was born on April Fool's 1949, but she didn't remember the 1956 happening either.

[Haruo]

April Fool's Day, regardless of where it falls in Lent or in Easter, is a date of significant spiritual import to me. It was on April first, 2000, that I was relieved, by what I choose to believe was divine intervention, of my addiction to tobacco. It had been several years since I had even thought seriously about quitting. It had been quite demoralizing the times I'd tried, and I think it had been over 25 years since I had managed to go more than four days without the stuff. But that day, I woke up, and I only had one cigarette in the apartment. I smoked it, and then as I recall, I said (out loud? Don't know) "I don't think I will go get any more." And I haven't. I was miserable with withdrawal symptoms for the first couple weeks, and always in the past the misery of such symptoms, not unlike the hay fever I'm suffering as I text this, had driven me to smoke more, not less. I didn't believe I had really quit until I was past the four-day mark, didn't even tell Verne I had quit because of the humiliation I knew I would feel once I knew he knew I had started up again. And it wasn't till maybe a week into it that I realized the day I had quit had been April first
But of course once I realized that, I also realized that I could start smoking again any time I wanted to, all I had to do was say "April Fool!" and IT WOULD BE OKAY. By the grace of God, with apologies to mÿ atheist friends, for the last 18 years I haven't had any significant craving or desire for a smoke, nor have I smoked, apart from secondhand, with or without the desire.

[Haruo]

Robert, here's the foot-washing text I was thinking of, or one of them, in a recent thread.