It is the First of April, and it is a very difficult day for people like me, who tend to believe what others say. I’m not very good at lying, and so I rarely bother doing it, and I just assume everyone else is the same way. For those who prey upon the weak, I am quickly labeled: Gullible.
And so it happened that as Seth and I drove once through Baltimore on our way from Florida to Maine, we passed by mountains of white sand that rose in the distance in sight of the highway. But I grew up in Florida. Mountains of any sort are rare here and just not natural. These Baltimore sights were obviously not natural, either, so I asked Seth, “What are those huge piles?” “Why, that’s sugar,” he answered, without blinking an eye. “Ha, you don’t say,” I replied. “Sugar.”
We were probably halfway through New Jersey by the time I had my first doubts about this. What if it rains? What’s to prevent ants from carrying all that sugar away, grain by grain? But of course it wasn’t sugar, it was sand, in preparation for winter’s icy roads. Again, not something we’re accustomed to in Florida. Seth definitely had the upper hand in this game. He still does. To this day, I rarely have the sense to realize I’ve been had. And then today we have a day where this sort of thing is encouraged and even expected, with tricks and practical jokes until noon. So goes the tradition, and yet the entire day is enough to make any naturally unsuspecting person jittery. I, for one, will be wary all day. Perhaps you’d be wise to be wary, as well.
Back in April of 2005, we published a Convivio Book of Days Calendar that was not quite on the line. It featured the photograph above, which we labeled “Easter Eggplant as it is grown in Lake Worth.” “By feeding regular eggplant varieties only colored water,” says the caption, “and by carefully protecting the fruit of the plant from direct sunlight, gardeners are able to grow multi-colored ‘eggs,’ ready for harvest just in time for the height of the Easter season. We grew this blue and pink fruit in our garden this spring.” The calendar goes on to describe days like St. Biscotti’s Day on April 8, Turnip Tuesday on the 12th, and on the 27th, at sunset, Dalmatia, a festival of Ancient Rome. Tradition would have us dress in black-spotted white garments and howl at the moon. Even I don’t believe half of this myself.
