So tomorrow is April Fools day and it got me thinking
about dates and calendars and months of the year and I’ve come to the conclusion
that our present so called calendar is a bit of a joke. In fact, it’s so messed up that the whole
idea of April Fools pranks originates from the mix up.
In the beginning God made day and night and soon after,
man made the calendar since people needed a reminder when the next full moon
rolled around so that everyone could plant their seeds.
Later, after societies were replaced by modern man who
had learnt how to write on paper they decided to redraft the calendar using
words instead of pictures, making it easier to carry a pocket diary. The first modern calendar was made by the
Romans, who had an 8 day week, (the 8th being market day). This was BC and since the Bible was not in
circulation yet, they still based their calendar on the moon which they
considered to be important for planting and named months after planets and when
to plant, chop wood and make love.
Next came the Julian calendar and they shuffled a few
days around and added a month, which they named after Julius Caesar himself. Then
finally, came the current Gregorian calendar which we still use today. In between
all this a few other calendars such as an Asian one also featured in other
countries just to complicate issues and to create employment for people who
worked out daylight saving time.
The current calendar used in many countries today, (not
all mind you) came about in 1752. Imagine,
there you were, happily making bottles of apricot jam and meebos to sell at the
castle to the Dutchies who stopped off with the post every other month and bam,
suddenly your calendar, neatly folded up and safely kept in the back of your
Bible, was no longer valid. All the
dates on your pickling bottles needed changing and never mind the confusion of
when a person was supposed to celebrate King James VI birthday anymore. There must have been utter chaos with taxes
and imagine the chaos that import export companies in the Cape harbour would
have had to deal with. Imagine trying to
keep track of dates of the Cape Pinotage leaving for kings on foreign shores. Its no wonder scurvy was such a problem since
no one knew the right date of a barrel of oranges sent out to sea.
You see, not only
did the calendar change from Julian to Gregorian, they changed the kick off
date. All along the 1st day of the year started on the 25 March and
then suddenly from the next year, it started on 1st of January.
Half a year was written off by some countries, and tough
if you had a big event planned on the 23 of September. Some countries were
still working Old Style system and others changed to New Style. A whole bunch of days couldn’t be accounted
for anyway since even though Julius Caesar’s data capturers where pretty good,
they just wrote off a day every now and then to catch up to the moon’s cycle. Anyway it was such a deurmekaar mix up that
since new years celebrations always lasted a whole week i.e. from 25 March to 1
April, some people were celebrating new year while others hadn’t heard the news
and were waiting for 1st January.
They teased the Old Style people who clearly were not with the program
and that’s how Aprils Fool started.
So where does that leave you and I today? Well it probably doesn’t matter since I’m
pushing 50 no matter which way you look at it.
