After the standard hearty daily breakfast fair, I left my very pregnant wife with our fifteen month old son, for the fifteen minute drive to the small job shop I had fumbled my way into managing this past year. Even though our next son was due in a little over a week, it hadn’t been a topic that morning. The four nights each week I was attending school to finish my degree in two months, had been.

Just before the days of ultra sound pictures, it was mostly old wives-tails that forecast the gender of pending arrivals. “If you carried it high, it was going to be a girl, low was going to be a boy.” “If you showed from the back, it was going to be a girl, if not it was a boy.” LOL Actually it was the ‘hints’ from the doctor that gave you the secret answer that was most reliable, and they had become pretty good at it. With the medical advancements of the day, why wouldn’t they be? We now had a vaccine for even polio and people were surviving TB on a regular basis and somebody had actually transplanted a human heart to another person in South Africa just a few months before. The comments of “he’s doing fine” or “he should be right on time” were coming from “the doctor”. They wouldn’t make any guarantees, but they would give you their best educated guess with their code.

Life was almost past the hectic stage and shaping up well. With my high school sweetheart as my wife and the next son soon to arrive, it was finally coming together. I had made it back from the service pretty much OK and both school and work were moving along. She had worked the first few years and we had bought our first house , with the help of the GI bill that was also helping with school, shortly after No.1 son was born.

I got to work knowing it would be another long day and night, but feeling some subconscious satisfaction. When I walked in the door, the plant foreman immediately said my wife had just called and that her water had broke and to “go back home right now”. Like being hit with a 2 x 4, I think I said “Oh my god!” as I slammed the door behind me and jumped in the car. I was at the end of the street with my mind whirling in a completely unscheduled direction before I realized it was April Fools day. I had left my pregnant, but smiling wife twenty minutes ago and the doctor had said “I’ll see you next week” just the day before, during her checkup. As the reality was sinking in, I was getting a little pissed at them playing with such a matter. I didn’t know the details of why my very young ass had been brought in by the attorney partner to replace the other half owner yet, or why the foreman, who was my senior by quite a few years, who had been giving me an even shake under the awkward circumstance, would play such a joke.

As I walked back in the door, Bill met me again and asked what’s was the matter. I smiled with raised eyebrows and said “that’s not funny”. “I know it’s April 1.” He said, “She called just before you walked in the door. Now get the fuck out of here! I don’t play games like that. There was no question that his face was earnest and after what seemed like a ten minute mind and body freeze, I bolted back out the door saying “you better not be”.

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