My Father's Favorite Day of the Year

Sheldon loved April Fool's day. It was HIS day. I remember being a little boy, playing in the yard one day. My father came to get me. "You're wanted on the phone," he said. This was, of course, the first time anyone had ever called me on the phone for anything ever, so it was a very unusual. I must have been about eight years old. Eight year olds don't get phone calls.

I go to the phone and the caller says:

"This is your principal at school. We need you and your parents to come down first thing tomorrow morning to have a meeting."

"Ok," I said, not having any clue what or why, but worried anyway.

I hang up the phone. Within seconds my father comes in and wants to know what the phone call was about. I tell him and he tells me that I must be in big trouble otherwise there wouldn't be a need to have a meeting with the principal.

I think the look of worry was enough to satisfy my father who then told me it was an April Fool's joke. Somehow my father was able to get across the street and get on the neighbor's phone fast enough to make all this work. This would have been quite a feat as I don't recall my father ever moving fast.

But as I said, April Fool's day WAS my father's day. His favorite target was Grandma Katie. He would get her year after year, even when everyone would tell her not to fall for it. Sheldon had a gift because it was, after all, his day.

The best prank he pulled on Grandma Katie occurred one evening at closing time out at the store in Carefree. He called Grandma Katie to tell her that the store had been robbed. He said that three big black men with machine guns had come into the store and took everything.

He said they took EVERYTHING... all the jewelry, stuff off the walls, the animal mounts... everything. Grandma Katie bought the story, of course. Then Sheldon said they even took the showcases. The entire store was bare. Sheldon at this point was beet red from trying to keep the laughter from bursting out of him. He even said the men took Todd and Kathy with them, and because he was slightly laughing, to Grandma Katie it sounded like he was crying... and this, of course, helped sell the story to Grandma Katie.

There were other pranks over the years, but I don't recall any of them being as good as this one. It was, after all, HIS day.