The best April Fool joke to completely blind side me was pulled off by my reporters at one of the newspapers I edited during the early 1980s.

They were a spunky crew: Two graduates from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut; the son of the guy who managed Madison Square Garden; a granddaughter of the Knight Ridder chain ownership; and a local woman named Cindy who managed to show them all how to do things faster and better.

I was tougher in those days, tough in the way that if I got my teeth into a juicy story I could be like a hungry feral cat.

The story on which I had most recently feasted involved a local city finance director named Gus and that’s about all I recall. Boy, it was important then. But apparently not that important. I know it involved money.

Like I said, it seemed so important then.

Now, in those days, I still had a little verve. Both the paper’s ad director and the local police chief had been what I would politely call inappropriate, so I was on my guard.

And loaded for bear.

Imagine my surprise, then when I found a big bouquet of flowers on my desk one morning with a charming note signed “Gus.”

My outrage roared throughout the building.

Barely casting a glance around the newsroom, I zeroed that poor bouquet into my trash can and stomped away to underscore my anger.

I think I probably said something like “How dare he?” to anyone who would listen.

Then I stomped (I wore high heels then) back into the comp room where the staff there was pasting up the next day’s paper.

“Can you believe the nerve?” I shouted to one of the staff, who was also a friend.

“Are you sure those are from Gus?” she asked, looking into my eyes with a clarity that caught me off guard.

I harrumphed my answer.

“Because you’re got some pretty frisky puppies out there.”

She had gotten my attention.

I walked along the wall that divided our two departments and peeked around the doorway.

The newsroom was a sea of heaving backs hunched over the desks.

Maybe I said “well-played.”

I can imagine that.

I know I waited a respectable time before I rescued the bouquet.

I pay better attention to the date now.

For instance, on April 1 this year, I observed the three-year anniversary of taking over for Anne Blankenship when she moved on to a new opportunity.

I remember I agreed to step in for two months.

Jane Curtis is editor of the Daily Freeman-Journal. She is an Iowa Newspaper Association Master Columnist.