Bill Petro

APRIL FOOLS’ DAY

April Fools’ Day, or All Fools’ Day, is the name given to the custom of playing practical jokes on friends on that day, or sending them on fools errands. The origin of this custom has been much disputed; it is in some way a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which, beginning on the old New Year’s day, March 25, ended on April 1.

Another view is that it is a farcical commemoration of Jesus’ trials during Passion Week when he was sent from Annas’ House to Caiaphas’ Palace to Pilate’s Praetorium to Herod’s Hasmonean Palace and back to Pilate again… which culminated in his crucifixion on Good Friday, which may have been April 1.

The observance in the UK of April 1 goes back to ancient times, though it did not appear as a common customt until the early 1700s. In Scotland the custom was known as “hunting the gowk”, i.e., the cuckoo, and April fools were “April gowks.” The France would designate this person as poisson d’avril.

In the US individuals and employees would concoct elaborate hoaxes on April Fools’ Day. At Sun Microsystems in Silicon Valley, for example, the size and complexity of these hoaxes were legendary in the 1980s in particular, with local television and radio media showing up to capture the event.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood hysterian
www.billpetro.com

ST. PATRICK’S DAY

Although much of the life of the patron saint of Ireland is shrouded in legend, he was probably born around the year 389. What we do know about him comes from his book, “The Confession”, which he wrote near the end of his life. It begins, “I am Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful…My father was Calpornius, a deacon, a son of Potitus, a presbyter, who was at the village of Bannavem Taberniea.” He was born it seems in the Severn Valley in England; British, not Irish. He was doubtless educated in pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain under a Christian influence with a reverence for the Roman Empire, of which he was a citizen. His father was a landowner and together with his family he lived on their estate. At the age of sixteen, when he claimed he “did not then know the true God,” he was carried off by a band of Irish marauders. Irish tradition says he tended the herds of a chieftain in the county Antrim. His bondage lasted for six years during which time, as he wrote, “turned with all my heart to the Lord my God.”

He fled 200 miles to the coast of Wicklow, and encountered a ship engaged in the export of Irish wolf-dogs. After three days at sea the traders landed, probably on the west coast of Gaul, and journeyed twenty-eight days through the desert. At the end of two months Patrick parted company with his companions and spent a few years in the monastery of Lerins. After returning home from the Mediterranean the idea of missionary enterprise in Ireland came to him. He seems to have proceeded to Auxerre where he was ordained by Bishop Amator and spent at least fourteen years there.

While in Ireland Patrick was both an evangelist of the gospel of Jesus and an organizer of the faithful. He battled heresy as well as engaged in trials of skill against Druids. There is some evidence that he traveled to Rome around 441-443 and brought back with him some valuable relics. On his return he founded the church and monastery of Armagh. Some years later he retired, probably to Saul in Dalaradia.

As one travels through Ireland, there are many stories and legends about Patrick. One in Dublin has it that the St. Patrick Cathedral (pictured at the top) is situated at the site of an old well where Patrick would baptize converts into the faith. There is a stone tablet in front of the church commemorating the location (pictured at right).

In modern times St. Patrick’s day has become primarily an ethnic holiday celebrating Irish heritage in much the same way as Columbus Day is a celebration of Italian ethnicity in the United States. You can’t close down the schools on St. Patrick’s Day without showing ethnic bias. So Massachusetts’s Suffolk County closes the schools to commemorate March 17, 1776, the day the British cleared out of Boston. For the record, they call it Evacuation Day.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

IDES OF MARCH

According to the ancient Roman calendar, the ides fell on the 13th of the month with the exception of the months March, May, July, and October, when it fell on the 15th.

It was on March 15, 44 B.C. that the Roman dictator Julius Caesar was assassinated. Contrary to popular belief, including William Shakespeare, Caesar was not assassinated in the Capitol, meaning the Curia Hostilia or Senate House in the Roman Forum at the foot of the Capitoline Hill (pictured at top), but rather near the statue of Pompey at the Theatrum Pompeium (pictured at right in the Largo di Torre Argentina in modern day Rome), where the Senate used to meet at that time. This precinct is now a Cat Sanctuary (as you can see the cat in the center of my photo) where I counted over a dozen homeless cats. They are regularly fed by local women.

Marc Antony would have delivered his Shakespearean “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” speech from the Rostra of the Forum, directly across from the Curia (pictured at left).

Dead bodies could not be kept inside the City, and Caesar was cremated in the Forum (at the location pictured on the right).

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com