Will you be able to detect the April Fool's Day jokes this year in Southwest Virginia?

Cheryl E Preston

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April Fool's Day is comingPhoto byLearn English video screenshot

Will you be fooled on this April 1st?

April Fool's Day was a highlight when I was growing up in Southwest Virginia and adults, as well as children, would get the better of each other with practical jokes on this date. One might be told their shoes were untied or there was a spider on their shirt and when they looked to see they heard "April Fool."

Last year News 10 reported a number of pranks of a different nature that took place in this area that people accepted as being true and only later found out it was a joke. These included reports of an alligator on Mill Mountain. Chick-Fil-A selling a large bucket of fries, and the Mill Mountain Star getting a makeover and being changed to a circle or square. There were people who believed these reports and were stunned they had been April Fool's Day pranks.

The origin of April Fool's Day on April 1 is not certain but The History Channel suggests it may have begun in 1852 when France changed from the Julian calendar which began on April 1 to the January 1 New Year of the Gregorian calendar we use today. The theory is that it took time for some locales to receive the news and they were teased about continuing to believe the first of April as the beginning of a New Year. April 1st is in a few days and keeping all of this in mind will you be able to determine if what you are told on the day is real or if someone is pranking you?

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I write, about breaking news, and current events. I wrote a newspaper column from 1997 to 2007 and have written for various online platforms since 2012 including Yahoo Contributor Network, Hubpages, and Vocal Media.

Roanoke, VA
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