Pastor Mark Wilkins has a favorite April Fools’ joke.
Bad with dates, about 15 years ago, he told his church secretary at Dyer Methodist Church that someone had died. The funeral was planned on April 2. He would be out of town on April 1, he said.
Meanwhile, he arranged to have a casket from a funeral home delivered on April 1. The funeral was scheduled in an hour, the woman was told.
She called Wilkins.
“I told her, you have to do the funeral,” he said.
While she was panicking, he suddenly walked up behind her. The friend popped out of the casket.
“She didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day,” Wilkins said.
Love it or hate it, April 1 tends to bring out the very best — or very worst, depending on to whom you talk — in people who want to pull a fast one on their family, friends or large groups. Businesses, not-for-profits and even municipalities got in on the Fools’ action Thursday.
History’s End, a local band, for example, posted on social media that it would be the opening act for Lil Nas X — the rapper who came under fire this week for twerking on Satan in a video for his new single and modifying a pair of sho athletic shoes to contain a drop of blood — at Popcorn Fest in Valparaiso Sept. 11.
Dig the Dunes, a website devoted to uncovering information about the Lake Michigan shoreline, ran a headline that read, “Private developer inspired to build modern day ski jump on Indiana Dune.” And the YMCA in Crown Point on Thursday had at least two gag banners announcing a “Bears Training Camp” in 2022. Wilkins declined to name names.
“I knew it was going to happen,” he said. “The gentleman behind that is an absolute genius.”
A good April Fool’s joke must have an element of truth, Wilkins said. Two years ago, his current church, First United Methodist in Crown Point, tapped into the upscale grocer obsession many in Northwest Indiana have and hung a sign saying Trader Joe’s was coming. A few years before that, they took a more whimsical approach and helped put 50 pink flamingos on the old county courthouse lawn.
“We have an awful lot of fun,” he said. “We’re already planning for next year.”
Using the “element of truth” approach, Cathy Brown, who co-owns Valpo Velvet in Valparaiso, said she woke up and thought of posting that their shop would be discontinuing its straight vanilla, vanilla bean and French Vanilla ice creams “for at least a year” because the price of vanilla flavoring has gone up quite a bit. The blowback was quick and frenzied.
“Sam, one of my employees, came up to me and said, ‘I can’t believe you posted that without telling the rest of us first,’ because we always tell everyone if we’re out of something beforehand,” Brown said, laughing. “We had messages on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and we had people calling. I’m still getting messages this afternoon.
“People are addicted to our vanilla. We would have to go out of business because it would be a major crime in the ice cream world for us not to have it.”
For those panicked souls who inquired, Brown put them out of their misery and reminded them of the date. Otherwise, she was content to let people wonder for a little while longer, she said.
The other trick to leveling a good April Fool’s prank is timing, Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said.
In 17 years of being the city’s leader, he said the trick to pulling off a good April Fools’ gag is to drop it at around midnight or so because that way, when people wake up, they’re not necessarily thinking about the date.
This year, with the help of at least 25 members of his staff, the city announced that it would be using the $53 million it’s receiving in American Rescue Plan Act funds to build a dome around Lost Marsh Golf Course in the city’s Robertsdale section. One of the jokesters created the dome’s artistic rendering they released, and the others plotted the announcement and social media engagement, he said.
By Thursday afternoon, the post had 400 shares, McDermott said. It might not have been as funny as the time the city announced it was opening a nude beach and had Chicago media salivating, he said, but it was more focused.
“People are watching how we’re going to spend the ($53 million) we got, and to spend it all on one ridiculous thing? I think that would be one of the last things I ever do as mayor,” he said. “I love April Fools’ Day, though. Everyone gets a laugh.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
