My best April Fool’s moment ever

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Many, many years ago, when I was in my early 20s, my then-wife Myra and I were at Penn Station. I’ve no recollection of where we were going, but we were there. And at one point she suddenly said, “Look! It’s Ben Bova!” I turned and looked. “April Fool,” she said.

“Wow, that’s hilarious,” I replied.

She then went off to the women’s room and who should walk past me but Isaac Asimov. “Hi, Doctor Asimov!” I called. “Hi,” he said, waving back.

So Myra returns and I said, “You’ll never guess who walked past! Isaac Asimov!” She said “Yeah, right.” She wouldn’t believe me And because there is a God, at that moment, Asimov walked past in the other direction. I said, “He’s right behind you!” “Uh huh,” she said, refusing to look. I said, “Hi, Doctor Asimov!” And he said, “Hello again!” Her head snapped around and her jaw dropped.

“Don’t go up against me on April Fool’s Day,” I said smugly.

PAD

3 comments on “My best April Fool’s moment ever”

  2. Some time back in some thread either having to do with, or having been derailed into having to do with, homosexuality, I posted here the account of how, on the dial-up online service for Commodore 64s known as “QuantumLINK” aka “Q-Link,” a suicidal young gay teen came in to a chat room that I was in to announce that he was about to kill himself because his father loathed him for being gay. I helped talk him out of it, and in so doing realized that my worldview about homosexuality being a choice was wrong (or else why wouldn’t the kid just stop being gay?).

    That was one really good thing I did on Q-Link back then. And now, the bad thing I did there:

    I posted often in the comics and science fiction areas there, and one day in the late 1980s (after the fourth movie, and ST:TNG’s episodes featuring McCoy [pilot] and Sarek but before the one with Scotty [“Relics”] and well before Generations), there had been a post about plans for a new Star Trek movie with a new, younger cast, set at Star Fleet Academy, with young actors portraying the classic characters (come to think of it, much like what J.J. Abrams would actually do a couple decades later). The Trekkies on Q-Link were livid to say the least. This thread was started in late March of that year.

    On April 1, I posted something to the effect of:

    Good news! Paramount has canceled the The Star Fleet Academy movie, and is instead working on a new movie that will give a proper send-of to the classic TOS characters!

    [at this point I wrote a rather detailed plot summary that I’ve mostly forgotten (it’s been almost three decades, almost ½ my life ago!), but it ended with Kirk and Scotty transported aboard a shuttlecraft out of the Alpha Quadrant and too far away to ever get back home (shades of Voyager!), but together they decide to continue their original mission: to explore strange, new worlds. To seek out new life, and new civilizations. To boldly split infiniti— er, go where NO ONE had gone before.]

    At last, an appropriate and faithful sendoff for our beloved Enterprise captain and at least one of his crew!

    I have only two more words to say about this:

    “April Fool.”

    Oh, to say the least, I was highly vilified for that. I remember some of the replies to this very day:

    • “That was really cruel.”
    • “That was very, VERY cruel.”
    • “THROW that man to the Klingons NOW!!!”

    At least one Reply pointed out that, in a few minutes for an April Fool’s prank, I had come up with a much better plot than the one that Paramount had supposedly announced.

  3. I am a huge fan of the Britsh electric folk group Fairport Convention (my main screen name is “Fairportfan”, and i spent money i didn’t really have to make two trips to England in the 90s for their annual music festival at Cropredy, Oxfordshire.

    There was a 3-CD set of their Thirtieth Anniversary Concert (1997 – and they’re still going strong today, last i heard). At the end of the third CD was a bonus track.

    Back in 1979, when Fairport broke up (until 1985) the band were staying with friends in Oxford after their final show. (The CD Farewell Farewell [re-issued as Encore Encore] commemorates their final 1979 tour.)

    March 31st, Dave Swarbrick, Simon Nicol, and some others stayed up late solving the woes of the world with the aid of

    a bottle of Scotch.

    Simon wandered next door to the house where he was staying, while Swarb and his host and others opened another bottle

    of single-malt inspiration (or two).

    Simon woke some time the next morning, and remembered three things.

    {A} Swarb, with visions of becoming a gentleman farmer (that lasted real quick) had bought a farm in Scotland.
    {B} An American fighter jet had crashed in Scotland very recently.
    {C} What day it was.

    So a tap was rigged to a phone and run to a stereo downstairs, and Simon called next door and impersonated a Scottish

    policeman.

    First he gets Swarb’s wife (one of several – collect the set). She runs upstairs to wake Swarb, then runs next door

    to relay the horrible news.

    It’s said Swarb’s wife’s is the loudest laughter heard at the end.

    (As the label on The Cropredy Box says –

    “Warning: Contains Explicit Swarbrick”. There are a whole lot of “F”s near the end. I would say this is NSFW.)

    …and here it is …

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