I’ve never been a fan of practical jokes. Not the crude ones like whoopie cushions. Not the mean ones like switching sugar and salt. Not the cruel ones like sending someone a fake love letter purporting to be from a person they’ve admired from afar. Not the disastrous ones like telling someone you were dying. And especially not the elaborate ones where the poor pranked person hadn’t a clue.
There was once a television show where the hosts played practical jokes on people. In one episode, a well-known actor had been wined and dined extensively by industry bigwigs as a prelude to his getting some important acting job. He played it cool, not getting excited, just accepting the scenario as possible since there was nothing out of the ordinary about the situation. At the end, when they told him it was all a joke, for a moment there was a blank look on his face, not embarrassment — just blank. As if the whole thing had been totally pointless, which such pranks are.
When I was growing up, we didn’t have a television because my father didn’t want us to be like everyone else, nor would he let us listen to the popular radio stations. Since I was naïve and out of the mainstream, kids often picked on me. One day, I got to school and found chalk hearts all over the playground with PB + EP inside. I couldn’t figure out what EP stood for since there was no one in the school with those initials, and no one would tell me what they meant. They laughed, thinking the whole thing hilarious. I don’t know how many days they strung out the joke until someone finally told me EP stood for Elvis Presley. I just stared at them, totally at a loss since I’d never heard of him. (Yep, I was that culturally isolated.) I still don’t understand the point of that incident; it just seems so utterly bizarre.
Today is April Fools’ Day, though in my world, it’s not something I ever bother to “celebrate” except in the way I celebrate anything — by learning about it.
Our April Fools’ Day probably came from a combination of two different historical events. The Romans held a Hilaria Festival on March 25, celebrating with masks, jokes, games, parades, the first day of the year where daylight was longer than the dark. Also, until 1582, people used a Julian Calendar, where the first day of the year was April 1. When they switched to the Gregorian Calendar, some people didn’t know that the first day of the year had been changed to January 1 and so continued to celebrate on April 1. They were considered fools, fair game for the pranks more enlightened folk played on them. Yeah, fun.
The only time I have ever been a “good sport” about a practical joke is when someone said something outrageous, then immediately admitted they were just joking. Anything longer is just . . . well, it’s just cruel. For the rest, being a good sport seems to mean that anyone can do anything to you and you’re supposed to take it with a smile, and that’s something I can’t do since it gives tacit approval to unkindness. Luckily, I’m old enough not to care what sort of sport people think I am and so can stop pretending that meanness is fun.
So, whatever the general meaning of this day, to me it only means staying inside by myself until the pointless foolery is done.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.
Bertram's Blog 
The “R” Thing
February 19, 2026 — Pat BertramI don’t know if I’ll ever post this because of . . . you know, the “R” thing. Still, I’m writing this for me because I think it’s interesting and because it’s something I’ve been noticing and thinking about.
I mentioned once or twice before that I sometimes listen to conservative black commentators. I started because I wanted to hear what they thought about white liberals insinuating (if not flat out saying) that blacks were too stupid to figure out how to get an ID in order to vote. Interestingly, most of those commentators ignored the issue, as if it had nothing to do with them because of course, it didn’t. The insinuation is merely talk from people who haven’t a clue what they are saying and no concept of how the world works.
I continued watching these commentators because they are smart and informed, they have great sources and resources, and they gave me a different slant on what was happening in this country. I especially wanted to hear things from their point of view rather than from the white liberals who are always telling us what blacks think (or what they should think).
That’s neither here nor there. It’s just something I did. But here’s what’s interesting: suddenly, I’m seeing a lot of these non-white people asking, “Where are the whites?” You’d think (if you listened to liberals) that living in a white-free world is what people of color want, but it isn’t. These commentators want what most of us want — to be known as Americans (or rather, United-States-ians since “American” suddenly means something different from what it always has meant), and they want to be part of a country where the races can intermingle. The first time I heard a mention of disappearing whites was from a black commentator who reviewed the half-time show. She said if it was supposed to be inclusive, “Where are the whites?” And then she admitted she missed seeing them.
Another black woman said that if it’s okay to promote black-owned business, then it should be okay to promote businesses as white-owned, but instead of doing either, she concluded, all these businesses should simply be promoted as “American-owned businesses.”
Then another black commentator noticed a white student being blocked from entering a “multi-cultural” area on campus and pointed out that “multi-cultural” by definition would include whites.
And yet another black commentator mentioned the difference between black pride and white pride — one is hailed as a good thing, the other evil.
And one often tells the history of slavery and mentions that whites are the only ones who fought to get rid of slavery, a practice that has gone on all over the world for thousands of years.
A prevalent comment left on these videos is from whites telling them they are betraying their race. Luckily, the commentators continue to voice their opinions despite this.
It seems ironic (or maybe fitting? I don’t know) in a world that’s trying to erase whites, where whites are made to feel ashamed of their heritage and skin color, where you can’t state simple facts if those facts include “whiteness,” where the European influence on the founding of this country is being overwritten, where an entire generation of white boys have been demonized for things that happened before they were born, it’s blacks who are pointing this out.
Maybe I am that “R” thing as so-called friends on Facebook once railed at me when I merely shared a post by a conservative black commentator who refused to be told what to think simply because her skin was a certain color.
Still, I think it’s an interesting turn of events, and apparently, since you are reading this, I decided it was interesting enough to post here on my blog.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.