By Nikki Laine Zinke, T-R Editor 

Reader response to our April Fool’s Day issue was a noisy jumble of praise and confusion.     A whole lot of folks declared that our front page hijinks were hilarious. Others, um, did not.    Yesterday, publisher Roger Bluhm and I received an anonymous letter from someone expressing such strong disgust for one of the April 1 spoof stories that we were both advised to pack up our things and get out of town.
    No fooling.
    I wonder what advice the letter writer might offer National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation, which announced on April 1, 1992, that Richard Nixon, in a shocking political move, was again running for president under the unlikely campaign slogan of “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I won’t do it again.”
    To his credit, or discredit I suppose, host John Hockenberry kept mum about the hoax.
    Even as comedian Rich Little impersonated Nixon’s voice in audio clips of the former president delivering his latest candidacy speech. Even as callers flooded the show with distressed expressions of fear and fury.    Hockenberry kept his listeners on the hook – only revealing the tomfoolery in the second half of the program. Here’s betting Hockenberry heard a word or two about that.    Here at the Times-Record, we were gratified by the volume of feedback generated by our April Fool’s Day issue.
    To tell the truth, our April 1 wool-puller was the single most popular issue of the  Times-Record during my tenure as editor. Copies practically flew off the newsstand as readers across the area discussed and debated the issue’s humor – or lack thereof.    And I couldn’t be more thrilled.    All this ruckus highlights just how important the Times-Record has come to be in so many people’s lives.  That’s certainly delightful news for us because we’ve worked doggedly these past 10 months or so to rejuvenate a newspaper that had grown tired and uninspired.
    We’ve come a long way already and we’re proud of that. We’re also proud to have shared in a world-wide tradition of April 1 fake-outs – a media practice that dates back to at least the 1840s.
    Understanding that wit to some is dour to others, an April Fool's edition can have just one goal: Once a year, make some people laugh. And if some folks end up laughing at themselves, so much the better.
    Our only regret this year is not making more obvious the parameters of our joke.
    So, dear readers, here’s my promise: Next year, we’ll make our signposts a bit taller and we’ll be sure to clear away the bushes.  After that, it’s up to you.