I totally forgot something last week. That can happen when you get old.

So, what did I forget? I forgot. Oh yeah, now I remember. I forgot that I had planned on using this space last week to clear something up from the week before.

So now, please accept my apologies for any misunderstandings which may have occurred by reading two things in the April 1 Faribault County Register.

One is the story about the old Lake Ozah Tanka being brought back, which was on page 3 of that issue. The other thing is about the Editor’s Notebook Column on page 4 of that same April 1 issue.

Both were inaccurate, purposefully misleading, and downright false. And I apologize for that.

Lake Ozah Tanka is not being brought back into existence, despite all of the quotes from public figures in the story saying it is going to be.

It was, indeed, our annual attempt at putting an April Fool’s Day story in the Register once again. Staff writer Kevin Mertens did an excellent job of making it believable. Perhaps too good of a job.

Once again this year, we had folks tell us that they spotted it right away. Others say they suspected it, and then had it confirmed in the last paragraph where County Commissioner Bruce Anderson reveals the truth.

Then there were those folks who did not read it to the end and discover the truth that the whole thing was a bunch of hooey.

There were several folks (and I won’t name names) who told us they were really excited about the lake coming back and they could hardly wait. One person said they just could hardly believe it was going to happen.

We had to tell her that she should have trusted her instincts and realized it wasn’t going to happen. Because it isn’t.

I had to tell her we lied. Again. Fake news. Not going to happen.

Well, never say never. I guess somewhere down the road anything could happen. But, no, there are no plans for it as this point in time.

Like a lot of folks, I kind of think it would be nice if it did. Faribault County isn’t blessed with a lot of lakes. And when you live in a state that boasts having 10,000 of them, one would think a dozen of those could be in every county.

But alas, no. Not here.

So I hope no one went out and bought a pontoon boat to use on the new lake, or looked for future lake shore property to build on, or tried to make a reservation at the new Tonka Tavern. Because there is never going to be one. A shame, too, because it sounded like it would have been a cool place. You can just see the Tonka Tavern sign on the artists rendering photo on page 3 of the April 1 issue.

And by artist’s rendering, we mean a totally doctored up in PhotoShop, totally faked, picture.

Item No. 2 was the part in the column about us not running an April Fool’s Day story this year.

That, of course, was not true, as everyone now reading this column realizes. I just was trying to put a little doubt in people’s minds that there wasn’t a fake story in that issue, when, as I just revealed a few paragraphs ago, there was one.

And then I wrote in that fateful column that we were never going to run another April Fool’s Day story ever again. We were done with it for a variety of reasons, from not wanting to keep coming up with a strange, yet believable idea, to not wanting to publish fake news in this day of fake news all over social media and the Internet, to being tired of being chastised for running one.

Actually, the real reason for the column was just to throw a bit more doubt on whether there was, or ever would be, another April Fool’s Day story in the Faribault County Register.

Apparently it was way too effective.

Several people appeared to be heartbroken that there might never be an April Fool’s Day story in the Register again. Others were just disappointed. There were a few who seemed a bit mad about it. They wondered how we could quit a decades-long tradition.

Again, some folks did not seem to have read that column all the way to the end. That is where I revealed that the editor (referring to myself in an editorial way) was nothing but a dirty, rotten liar and folks should not believe a word he says (or writes).

The truth is, there just might be another April Fools Day story in the Register next year or in future years.

None of us can predict the future, or control the future, and future editors of the Register are certainly going to do what they want. Or at least do what their publisher allows them to do.

So, there you go. That story about a new lake was fake. My column that week was a bunch of hooey. I confess. Mea culpa. And now my conscience is clear.

Well, as clear as an editor’s conscience can ever be…