From prowling possums to pasta trees, beware April Fool's.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

P eaceHealth is backing out of its proposed RiverBend hospital in Springfield, instead choosing to build a new Sacred Heart Medical Center on the banks of another river, the Long Tom, near Monroe.

The University of Oregon announced Saturday that the school's top donor, alum and Nike founder Phil Knight will become the Ducks new head track and field coach, a move that's sure to send conflict-of-interest shock waves throughout the world of college athletics.

And the UO's mascot, Donald Duck, is really a man. And one year, he was a woman.

OK, so the one about Donald is true. Still, you won't find The Register-Guard succumbing to the temptation Friday - April Fool's Day - to print some humdingers that just might fool you, dear reader. No way. We're a credible news source.

What we will do is share with you some of the all-time great April Fool's Day pranks in history - a few of which even come from such respected publications and news organizations as Sports Illustrated and the BBC - along with some provided by Lane County residents.

Who - except those who don't read SI or didn't 20 years ago - can forget the story of Sidd Finch, the new rookie pitcher whom the prestigious sports magazine wrote about in April 1985? They even had photos of the barefoot pitching wonder winding up and throwing his 168 mph fastball. Having mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery, Finch was reportedly headed to the New York Mets and readers fell for it, only to find out that the story existed only in the imagination of the writer, George Plimpton.

That doozy is listed as the second-best April Fool's prank ever on a list of the top 100 at www.museumofhoaxes.com.

Hard to beat, you say? You're dying to know No. 1, aren't you? Well, let's just say it has to do with spaghetti and was brought to you by the BBC news show, Panarama, in 1957.

Sorry, you'll have to wait until the end of this article to hear about it.

April Fool's.

Actually, the show announced that, thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. The story was even accompanied by footage of peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Numerous callers wanted to know how they, too, could grow their own spaghetti trees. They were told to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

Delightful, no? And no serious harm done.

"A good April Fool's joke should bring delight to both the perpetrator and the recipient," says Florence's Sharon Davis.

That's why she had the feed store call her mother again for a recent April Fool's Day joke. Davis's parents used to pick up 100 baby chicks every year in late March to raise on their farm, but since retiring and moving to the city, that hasn't been the case. Davis told the store to call anyway and insist they'd been ordered again and had to be picked up. When her mother arrived, a bouquet of flowers loaded with baby chicks - those little Easter ones - was waiting for Mom.

Of course, all April Fool's jokes do not delight the recipient. Just ask Cheryl Smith of Cheshire about the one "that went wrong."

While working a part-time job in Salem one year, Smith and her boss played a joke on a good friend at work. Knowing the friend had a reputation for snagging incoming faxes and reading them before they got to the appropriate party, the two had a notice written up on the company president's letterhead saying Smith and her friend's positions were being eliminated.

The friend didn't take it well when the gag was confessed and it took a bouquet of flowers from Smith, and chocolates and Stoli vodka from the boss, to ease her pain.

Here are a couple of other ideas from Register-Guard readers to spice up your April 1:

If your boyfriend is unlike most guys, and doesn't like "vermin," then do what the daughter of Eugene's Ann Schwartz did one April 1: Make him think you've brought a baby possum home. With a note left in the kitchen, and a box with a hole ripped out of the top left in the bedroom, she left knocked-over garbage cans, little piles of trash and inched-open cabinet doors everywhere.

Yes, he was a bit peeved. And freaked out. But the belly-aching laughter that mother and daughter shared was more than worth it, Schwartz says.

Not into possums?

Then how about sticking a piece of wax paper in your sister's sandwich, like Junction City's Darlene Stichler did to hers in 1954?

It was funny then, and even funnier last year - 50 years to the day - when baby sister got a piece of Saran Wrap with her barbecued burger.

"The look on her face was priceless," Stichler says. "We laughed till we cried."

Of course, if you don't find any of these ideas appealing, you can always hand a co-worker an urgent note Friday to call and ask for Myra Maines.

Just make sure the phone number is for a local funeral home.

APRIL FOOL'S DAY PRANKS

Foolish comics: In 2003, Don Kahle of Eugene's Comic News fools the local media when he sends out a press release about the publication's final issue. It has become an annual tradition. Expect another final issue this week, Kahle says.

Instant color TV: In 1962, Sweden's only TV channel tells viewers they can begin receiving color TV by simply pulling a nylon stocking over their sets, even showing a demonstration. Color TV didn't actually come to Sweden until 1970.

The Taco Liberty Bell: In 1996, the Taco Bell Corporation announces that it has bought the Liberty Bell from the federal government and is renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.

Nixon all over again: In 1992, NPR's "Talk of the Nation" announces that Richard Nixon will run for president again. His new campaign slogan? "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again."

Different pi: The April 1998 issue of "New Mexicans for Science and Reason" newsletter contains an article claiming the Alabama Legislature has voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the "biblical value" of 3.0

- www.museumofhoaxes.com, Register-Guard archive