So I was watching a documentary on the History Channel last week about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It was showing on April 15, the day Lincoln was killed. Have read something the previous day about another tragedy that happened in history, it got me curious and I started looking at dates from last week. It was scary how many tragic events happened within the same week throughout history.
I started by looking at April 12. Back in 1945, World War II was starting to come to an end. The U.S. was led throughout the entire war by one of the best Presidents in history. But on April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage and never got the chance to see the end of the war. He also never got a chance to see a booming post-war U.S. that he helped rejuvenate after the depression.
The next day, April 13, marked another somewhat tragic event in U.S. history, although this one ended happily. In 1970, Apollo 13 was in flight to the moon when there was an explosion on the spacecraft that nearly ended the lives of three astronauts. I'm sure most people have seen the movie with Tom Hanks, so we all know the story and how they made it back, but it was on April 13 that the near explosion occurred.
April 14 was the next day that marked a tragic world event. In the late night hours on that date back in 1912, the RMS Titanic struck a large iceberg in the North Atlantic and later sunk, killing over 1,500 passengers. The ship didn't actually sink until the early morning hours of the next day, April 15, but it started with hitting that iceberg on the night of April 14.
As I mentioned earlier, April 15 was the day that Abraham Lincoln died. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth on the evening of April 14, and died the following morning. Sort of like the Titanic, the event took place the night before, and the tragedy occurred the next day. One of the two best President's in U.S. history, Lincoln was the first U.S. President to be assassinated and brought our country through the Civil War and kept in intact.
In 2007,on April 16, a student at Virginia Tech went on a shooting spree, killing 32 people before taking his own life. It marked the deadliest peace time shooting incident by a single gunman in United States history.
On April 17, tragedy rested. But only for a day.
On April 18, the people of San Francisco were awakened in the pre-dawn hours to a major earthquake. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was felt as far north as Oregon and as far inland as Nevada, and was estimated to have killed over 3,000 people.
The next day, and nearly 90 years later, Oklahoma City was the victim of a domestic attack when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building. The April 19, 1995, bombing claimed the lives of 168 people, including 19 children who wer eat a daycare in the building.
Four years and one day later, on April 20, 12 students and one teacher were killed and 21 others were injured when two students went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School.
All in all, that's a pretty rough week of tragic events. Some involved big name politicians, others involved everyday, ordinary people. I just found it odd that all of these events took place during the same one-week time period in April.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
April Fool's Day Has Lost Luster
Maybe it's a part of getting older, and more mature, but it seems like April Fool's Day has lost some of its luster to me. I used to look forward to this time of year, and I used to plan for it weeks ahead of time. Now, it's just another day.
I just remember in years past, I would plan out things weeks in advance. Whether it was a simple trick on one person, or a big trick played out to a large group of people. I've had some good ones in the past, if I do say so myself - which I do. Perhaps the best was a few years back when I wrote out this long, 10 paragraph, three-page rant about how I was selling off my possessions, going around the U.S. to travel and live out of my car for year or so. It was great - with the answer to the April Fool's trick cleverly hidden inside the long writing. The best was a phone call I got from my mother, who just about blew a gasket. I still remember answering the phone and after saying hello, hearing her say, "You son of a bitch." According to my dad, who laughed at it, she was ready to fly to St. Louis and rescue me.
There was another year I pulled a similar trick at a home softball game for the college I was working at and played the trick on the crowd that was at the game that day. I remember times in Tulsa when we pulled pranks on some of the people at work, filling it with balloons, or filling their desk drawers with styrofoam peanuts.
It was always fun just doing crazy things that made people laugh. That has always been enjoyable to me though, doing things to make people laugh. I'm a firm believer in the phrase 'laughter is the best medicine.' So I always try to do my part to make that happen. Seriously, who doesn't enjoy a good laugh? And most people enjoy a good laugh even if it's at their own expense.
I think that's why I enjoyed April Fool's Day so much - it was a chance to do make a joke or pull a prank that would make people laugh and feel better. But, the last couple of years, I really haven't done much of anything, and I'm not sure why. Lack of motivation maybe. Perhaps its just that I'm getting older, wiser and more mature (on second thought - it couldn't be that, and if you know me you'll agree - haha).
For whatever reasons though, it has kind of faded in its importance to me in terms of doing some kind of joke. Or maybe I've just run out of ideas. Maybe next year I can start planning out ahead of time and pull of another doozie, who knows. So be prepared, you never know when I'll get the urge to pull something off again.
I just remember in years past, I would plan out things weeks in advance. Whether it was a simple trick on one person, or a big trick played out to a large group of people. I've had some good ones in the past, if I do say so myself - which I do. Perhaps the best was a few years back when I wrote out this long, 10 paragraph, three-page rant about how I was selling off my possessions, going around the U.S. to travel and live out of my car for year or so. It was great - with the answer to the April Fool's trick cleverly hidden inside the long writing. The best was a phone call I got from my mother, who just about blew a gasket. I still remember answering the phone and after saying hello, hearing her say, "You son of a bitch." According to my dad, who laughed at it, she was ready to fly to St. Louis and rescue me.
There was another year I pulled a similar trick at a home softball game for the college I was working at and played the trick on the crowd that was at the game that day. I remember times in Tulsa when we pulled pranks on some of the people at work, filling it with balloons, or filling their desk drawers with styrofoam peanuts.
It was always fun just doing crazy things that made people laugh. That has always been enjoyable to me though, doing things to make people laugh. I'm a firm believer in the phrase 'laughter is the best medicine.' So I always try to do my part to make that happen. Seriously, who doesn't enjoy a good laugh? And most people enjoy a good laugh even if it's at their own expense.
I think that's why I enjoyed April Fool's Day so much - it was a chance to do make a joke or pull a prank that would make people laugh and feel better. But, the last couple of years, I really haven't done much of anything, and I'm not sure why. Lack of motivation maybe. Perhaps its just that I'm getting older, wiser and more mature (on second thought - it couldn't be that, and if you know me you'll agree - haha).
For whatever reasons though, it has kind of faded in its importance to me in terms of doing some kind of joke. Or maybe I've just run out of ideas. Maybe next year I can start planning out ahead of time and pull of another doozie, who knows. So be prepared, you never know when I'll get the urge to pull something off again.
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