Rick Patrick:
The iconic American writer and satirist Mark Twain once said that April 1st is the “day set aside to remind us of what we are the other 364 days of the year.”
I’ve always enjoyed “April Fools Day.” I admire a good practical joke the way art connoisseurs admire a classic Van Gogh painting. I still think a well-placed “whoopie cushion” has great comic potential. One of the best practical jokes I have ever seen was one played on my father by one of his closest friends many years ago.
For many years, Matt Rigoni and my father would take a yearly pheasant hunting trip to Nebraska. My father looked forward to this trip with great anticipation. Shortly after returning home from one of these trips, my father received a letter in the mail from the Nebraska Game and Fish Commission (or the Nebraska equivalent thereof). When my father opened the letter, it informed him that he and his hunting party had been observed shooting hens (which you are not supposed to do in Nebraska); and as a result, his hunting privileges were permanently revoked. This letter looked official, on official letterhead and everything. I asked my dad if they had, in fact, shot hens and he admitted they had. Not many, but yes, they had shot some hens. Now my dad was a man who generally did the right thing. We always adhered to proper limits, and we always left a campsite as clean, and usually cleaner than we found it. My father always told me, “Don’t make the Indian cry.” (Referring to the classic TV commercial when the Indian sheds a tear at all the litter and pollution he sees around him.) With that in mind, I was surprised at the severity of my father’s punishment. He asked Mr. Rigoni if he had received a similar letter, and indeed he had.
A few weeks later my dad received a Christmas card from his dear friend, Matt Rigoni. In the card is a photo of a smiling Matt Rigoni standing there dressed in a Nebraska Game Warden’s uniform. Mr. Rigoni had planned the entire thing, right down to the Game Warden’s uniform! That joke lives as one the best practical jokes I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. The work that went into that joke and the “how’d he do that?” factor makes it a classic in the realm of great practical jokes. I think no one appreciated it more than my dad.
So have fun this April Fools Day!! Just be sure to look before you sit; there just may be a well-placed whoopie cushion there.