The traditional pesce d'Aprile (April Fool's trick) in Italy consists of a youngster surreptitiously attaching - with the help of tape or glue - a paper cutout of a pesciolino (small fish) to the rear shoulders of a school companion. Then everyone jokingly questions: L'hai visto?—Chi?—Il pesce d'Aprile! (or Have you seen?—Who?—the April Fool!) and makes derisive remarks about the victim.
 |
| The Spring Spaghetti Harvest |
I kinda am drawn to "All Fools Day" since we have "days" for Presidents, Valentines, Souls, Saints etc., why not fools? We have enough of them. And speaking of the spaghetti harvest....
Those of us who take the first of April Fool's Day seriously were often the brunt of the "fish on the back" treatment growing up. I went on my first "snipe hunt" when I was seven. When I was 9 and playing golf on, of all things, pesce d'Aprile (seriously) I was on a par 3 and lined the ball into the woods. My dad said he saw it bounce out toward the green but I was sure it was deep in so in I walked, searching, foul mood, argh. Pop was on the green and I couldn't find the ball and he starts yelling "its in the hole...its in the hole..." Wow! A hole in one.
I'm going crazy and some folks hear the noise and now it is too late as the crowd figure this was something with a 9 year old and all and my dad figured he would look like a miserable trickster for pulling this stunt and fooling me. He waited until we were in the car to tell me the truth. We never played golf on that course again. I'm confessing this as in the upper reaches of Michigan there is a little 9 hole course carved out of the pines and on the 7th hole is a little brass marker with the names of all the folks who got a hole in one there and my name is engraved on it. It can't be removed.
April Fools