It was April Fool’s day and what happened? Not much here in Allen. But it didn’t use to be that way. People have “nearly” always enjoyed a good joke. As long as it’s not on them. No. I’m not going to reprint a list of April Fool’s Jokes that have taken place over the years. Especially those in my own family. Sometimes it didn’t have to be April 1 to precipitate an “April Fool’s Joke.” But such a reprint would be just that--a repeat of mostly already published jokes.

Another long running source of misinformation was caused by the introduction of the “Julian” Calendar back in the year of 49 AD. The calendar wasn’t well received way back then and hobbled along with much of world just ignoring it for the most part. The Catholic church kept messing with the dates too. Why? Well they thought they had a better idea. Besides, the idea of getting to say that one has the power to decide what is the actual date and then make others go along with the new idea. Or to put it another way is: “Who is to say what day it actually is?”

The Catholic Church adopted their version of this Julian Calendar back around 500 A.D. Again, a good part of the population in Europe just ignored this Church’s version of what is that day’s date. Just who and how the common peasants kept up with the correct date is not too clear to me but I expect most knew when Sunday’s rolled around because their Priest’s told them. There were some who were like Harry Truman’s pigs. Harry liked to say “that fellow doesn’t know anymore about what he’s talking about than a pig knows about Sunday.”

Problems about the church and knowing which day was Sunday were worsened when hundreds of thousands of Americans and would be Americans, settle the wild and isolated West. Keeping the time and date correct was hard to do and I doubt if a lot of harried settlers worried about it much. Again, it was the arrival of a preacher or priest in one of these new areas that got things going with day and dates. Again it had to do with what time church started and when Sunday was anyway? But the parson’s first worry was to find his potential new members and see they were married and not just living together.

And getting back to accurate “clock” time, that was very important, too. Every little community had some place, or something that contained a good clock to be steadfast and reliable in knowing what time it actually was. Starting before the mid 1800’s large huffi ng trains were hurrying to and fro hauling passengers and freight all over the prosperous and busy USA. Everything ran like clockwork for them. Just as long as all their clocks were accurate and told the same time. The era was a nervous nightmare for many railroads whose conductors and engineers used their “railroad” watches to tell them when to get on the siding and let another train pass.

Alas and thankfully, the almost instant propagation of telegraph lines provided a way for the nation (and its railroads) to keep their clocks together. Pride by the guy who kept the town’s clock on time meant he would walk down to the telegraph station and get the right time. Often. Right to the second. And that was a good thing.

Now we don’t give it much thought. Our “cheap” wrist watches are kept regular by a piece of quartz crystal. We have Daylight Savings Time and our new clocks magically change the time twice a year at 2 AM. Well, they’re supposed to. And of course, we all know that Daylight Savings Time is causing global warming.

Have a good weekend and be sure and go to your church this Sunday. And remember that I love hearing from my readers.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

waynebullard@sbcglobal.net