In March 1983, a spokesman at Boston University asked Joseph Boskin, a humor scholar in the Department of History, if he knew anything about the origins of April Fool's Day.
Professor Boskin responded to faceTive, but apparently it doesn't seem to be enough. To his surprise, the university issued a news release promoting him as an authority on the subject.
What happened next was one of the strangest episodes in April Fool's Day's Tom Fourley's chronicle, with a revenge plot that included a coconut cream pie.
“I wrote three or four books,” Professor Boskin told the Christian Science Monitor in 2010. “This seems like my Andy Warhol moment.”
Professor Boskin passed away on February 16th, his family said. He was 95 years old. His death was not widely reported at a hospice facility in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Shortly after the news release occurred, Associated Press reporter Fred Bales requested an interview with Professor Boskin. Professor Boskin couldn't immediately contact him as he flew to Los Angeles to interview Norman Leah for the book he was planning to write.
When April Fools' Day experts claimed they had landed, he heard his name was being paged at the airport intercom. It was the BU Public Relations Office.
“I said, 'You know, I was just a jumper,'” Professor Boskin told the Christian Science Monitor. “I protested and said I couldn't do that. She said, 'Yeah, you have to call him.'”
After arriving at Mr. Biles, Professor Boskin admitted that he knew nothing about the origins of April Fool's Day.
“I was a young, enthusiastic reporter and I knew this would make a great national story, so I thought he was shy about it,” Bales said in an interview. “Little of me knew that embarrassment wasn't his problem. So, like a good reporter, I stuck.”
In the spirit of April Fools' Day, Professor Boskin relented.
On the spot, he invented a story about Constantine, the Roman emperor. He said the court's Jesters group was convinced to Constantine that they could run the empire better than they could. Constantine was amused and appointed a clown named Kugel as king for a day. Kugel declared April 1 to be an annual leave dedicated to absurdity.
“I thought he would catch up,” Professor Boskin told the university's publication BU. “Instead, he asked how to spell Kugel.”
On April Fools' Day, Biles' articles appeared in newspapers around the world.
“In a way, it was a very serious day,” Professor Boskin was quoted as saying in the article. “A fool was a really smart guy back then. It was a goodbye role to bring things into perspective with humor.”
Two weeks later, Professor Boskin told his class what he had done. One of his students was a reporter for the campus newspaper. Feeling the good news, the student called the Associated Press for comment. Bales discovered it and was devastated.
“I thought my career was over,” he said. “It was absolutely horrifying.”
The AP has published an article about an episode in which a Boston University spokesman said “I regret that what was born as a story about humor proved that there was no humor.”
Professor Boskin claimed he had done nothing wrong.
“I ended the story with April Fool's Day, so I created it,” he said.
But the story didn't end there.
Joseph Boskin was born in Brooklyn on August 10, 1929 to Abraham and Diana (Gayer) Boskin. His father was a plumber.
After graduating from the University of Oswego at the State University of New York in 1951, he served in the Army as a historian of Greenland's Secret Science Expeditionary Force. Fearing the height, he spent much of the deployment avoiding the H-13 helicopter.
“It was a whim for others, but the thrill of a lifelong air sales wasn't for me,” he wrote in his memoir, “Boskin's Cold War: A Comic Journey” (2011). “I was already very pleased to be a land historian and defending my country.”
After Army Service, he received his Masters in History from New York University and in 1959 a PhD from the University of Minnesota.
Professor Boskin studied race relations while teaching at the University of Southern California in the early 1960s. After joining the faculty at Boston University in 1969, he began teaching humor, writing articles for academic journals under titles such as “Humor in the Civil Rights Movement” and “Black Humor: The Renaissance of Laughter.”
After the Associated Press exposed April Fool's Day pranks, Professor Boskin thought the story would disappear into history. So did Bales – at least he wanted it to do that. However, every year around April 1st, reporters will look for pairs for interviews. Bales always said no. Professor Boskin often said yes.
“It was like he was rubbing it,” Bail said.
In 2004, Bales joined Boston University's Journalism department. that's right. Their memories of who was different eventually agreed to have lunch at the university faculty club.
Before they met, Mr. Bail said he went to the supermarket to buy a pie. He was about to pie his archenemy in his face.
“He's a huge interest in humor, so I thought I'd give him a favor,” recalls Beil. “I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which pie would be interesting. The lemon meringue was running, but settled on coconut cream.”
They engaged in a small story before they reached Constantine and Kugel. With the pie in the knapsack, Bales revealed that he felt betrayed and continued to feel. Professor Boskin said he was not grateful to be a liar.
“His eyes have become really dark,” Bales said. “I was surprised, and at that point I realized that this was also tortured him in some way.”
He left the pie in the knapsack and went back to his office to eat it.
In 1955, Professor Boskin's marriage to Claire Greenberg ended with divorce. He is survived by his longtime partner, Charlene O'Connor. his daughters, Julie Scott, Lori Boyle and Deborah Boskin; Three grandchildren. and his brother, Melvin.
The professor and reporter's talk didn't end with lunch.
Mr. Bales' daughter Kara has become a reporter. She grew up listening to the story and thought it was worth telling, so in 2017 she emailed Professor Boskin for an interview.
“I'm happy to be able to get together with you,” he replied.
Bales wasn't entirely sure that the details of the pie were true. That was almost too good. She told Professor Boskin about her father's revenge plan and asked him what he thought.
“Even if it's a hoax,” he said, “it's a great hoax.”
