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April Fools’ Day Postponed To A Later Date

Carl Goldman’s Journal – Day 56

The coronavirus, COVID-19 has taken another toll. April Fools’ Day is officially postponed to a later date.

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With so many of us quarantined, businesses closed and over 2,500 deaths in the United States, April Fools’ would be in poor taste.

In the past, KHTS has made April Fools’ Day an annual tradition. You may enjoy many of our April Fools’ classics.

The fun part of April Fools’ is fooling the reader by printing a story that’s a little believable but gets more absurd as the reader gets deeper into the story. In the case of KHTS, we can add to the fun by involving our key local politicians and community leaders into the story, giving them fake edgy quotes that complement their personalities.

My favorite joke was the year we created a virtual tollbooth outside our former KHTS studios on Soledad and Camp Plenty.

On the morning we posted the story and announced traffic jams on the radio, one of our city councilmembers called our radio station to have us look out our window to see if there was really a toll booth since he was receiving a number of complaints.

How the city could have erected a toll booth over Easter weekend would have been a California miracle. How city staff would have implemented it without city council approval remains a mystery.

KHTS took a lot of heat since drivers going from Canyon Country to Valencia had to pay $10.00, but no one had to pay to go from Valencia to Canyon Country. For those who don’t know our valley, Canyon Country has always been the stepchild of Santa Clarita.

Since Jeri and I live in Canyon Country and our radio station studios and transmitter were also in Canyon Country, we thought we could make fun of ourselves. We were wrong. People were upset even after the joke was over.

My two all-time favorite April Fools’ jokes were created by the BBC and parking attendants at Walt Disney World.

On April 1, 1957 the BBC ran a 2 1/2-minute documentary on the “Spaghetti Harvest” in Ticino, Switzerland. Mind you this was many decades before misinformation began spreading over social media. Also, it was the BBC, the most respected media entity in the world.

After airing the documentary showing spaghetti growing on trees and being picked by local peasants, polls were taken throughout Great Britain. Most people got sucked in, like Orson Welles’ classic, “War of the Worlds” in 1938. Communication classes have studied the harvest for many decades. It’s worth watching.

In the mid-’70’s many compact rental cars were red. Parking attendants at Disney World directed all red compacts to one area. Hundreds were parked together. This is also long before we had clickers on our keys or cellphones with cameras to capture whether we parked in Goofy six or Minnie seven. After a long Disney day parents dragged their kids back to their cars. Almost all red ones were rentals so even the state of the license plate was useless. No one knew. Did we rent a Toyota, Datsun or VW? It was not a happy moment at the Magic Kingdom.

With so many of us now quarantined and the Federal Government providing temporary financial support to businesses and individuals, it is important we remain in isolation and keep our social distances to slow down the spreading of the novel corona virus.

An article on CNBC news says that according to new data published by the CDC (Center for Disease Control) COVID-19 RNA was found on surfaces in Princess Diamond cabins 17 days after all passengers had disembarked. This means the virus can live outside our body a lot longer than first suspected.

Our “ground zero” passenger onboard the ship who exited in Hong Kong and didn’t realize he had the virus until four days later could have left germs all over the Diamond Princess. During the many days we had full reign of the ship, we probably picked up the virus touching a hand railing on the stairs, an elevator button, or doorknob. That’s how the ship became a floating petri dish. Many of us spread the coronavirus, COVID-19 without any contact with other passengers or crew.

That’s why it is so important we follow official guidelines, keep our social distance, don’t touch our face, wash our hands frequently and remain quarantined for at least the remainder of April.

Jean Harris shared another article about a study in Germany showing the coronavirus, COVID-19 is much more contagious during the early stages of infection. It states we are emitting high amounts of virus early on during our infection, which also contributes to the virus spreading so rapidly. However, the study also shows while we are still testing positive and shedding toward the end of our illness, we might no longer be contagious. That may explain why I tested positive for 29 days yet felt fine for weeks.

Our radio station, KHTS has been devoting our programming to the latest virus information in Santa Clarita as well as nationally. We’ve created a Facebook page devoted to nothing but coronavirus updates.

While we had a doozy of an idea for this year’s April Fools’ joke, we chose to take the safe, responsible route and not add to the stress. We’ll save our idea for April Fools’ 2021. Meanwhile, we hope memories of previous April Fools’ will act as a fun diversion and put smiles on many faces.

Read All Of Carl’s Journals Here: Carl Goldman Coronavirus Journals


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April Fools’ Day Postponed To A Later Date

6 comments

  1. I always look forward to the April Fools Day joke. Whoever does it, is good and thorough. I will wait with bated breath to see it when you are finally able to post it.

  2. In the context of the CNBC article, ‘coronavirus RNA'(a building block of novel COVID-19) and novel COVID-19(infectious disease) are not the same: Only novel COVID-19 causes infection. Because the article doesn’t state that clearly, IMHO, the CNBC article borders on sensationalism.

    In a WHO article, it clearly states: ‘It is important to note that the detection of RNA in environmental samples based on PCR-based assays is not indicative of viable virus that could be transmissible’.

    Please copy the entire sentence in quotes above and do a search for the WHO article. IMHO, I would trust WHO with any info they provide rather than CNBC.

  3. The tollbooth gag will never not be funny. While in my favorite restaurant I was telling a friend about this when the owner came by and overheard the story. But coming in late she missed the part where I had said April fools joke nearly causing her to panic over the fear of lost business. When I explained the story came from you she was having none of it. I guess I took that one for the team, happily.

    Even your headline today brought a smile. Thanks, no foolin’.

  4. My favorite is the 2015 Airport Plan for the Whittaker-Bermite Site.

  5. I love your April Fools jokes. When you published the one on the Toll booths, I couldn’t help but share with coworkers – A couple of them got really mad. It was so hard to keep a straight face. In the end they all got a great laugh that they fell for it. What I found funny was the ones who got mad drove right through the intersection on their way into work, they didn’t see a toll booth but where mad it was there.

  6. So, Jeri and Carl,

    The image you used for the April Fools article appears to be you and your friends standing in front of a very famous building in Taipei, Taiwan. Am I correct?

    So….why does Carl have a mask? Is this Photoshoped? Sure looks curious. OR are you already off globe trotting again.

    Jeff Bennett

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About Carl Goldman

Carl Goldman, along with his wife, Jeri repurchased KHTS AM-1220, Santa Clarita’s hometown station on October 24, 2003. They owned it from 1990-1998, and then sold it to Clear Channel Communication in 1998, buying it back from Clear Channel in 2003. Since then, they have rebuilt KHTS as a critical voice of the Valley. In 2015 the radio station moved to its new headquarters on Main Street in Old Town Newhall, in the original Newhall Hardware building. In 2018 an FM was added, 98.1, with its signal being simulcast with AM-1220. In January 2020, Carl and Jeri cruised on the Diamond Princess. Carl was one of the first Americans to come down with Covid-19. Months earlier he was impacted by Guillain Barre Syndrome as a result of a Shingles vaccine in September 2019. He is still in recovery from the vaccine.