When I was a Junior in High School, my best friend David’s cousin moved in with him. Matt was a year older than we were and had moved to our small Utah town from the beaches of Southern California.
That made him the coolest person we knew.
Matt’s impact on our group was immediate and long-lasting — but it didn’t have anything to do with surfing or beach life. It was his ideas. Matt was subversive; Matt was different; Matt was cool.
Matt invented the positive practical joke.
It started at church. The leader of a Mormon congregation isn’t a minister or reverend; it’s a Bishop —just like in the New Testament. Ours was Bishop Talbot. He was strict but friendly, with a ready smile and a well-developed sense of humor.
And a nearly dead Volkswagen.
The running boards on Bishop Talbot’s Volkswagen hung down from the sides of his car like like a rusty rubber skirt. It never started on the first try. It backfired. It stalled if he turned too sharply. We used to joke that it actually ran on fasting and prayer.
For weeks we’d been joking about doing something to Bishop Talbot’s car. We’d thought of turning it sideways in his carport, of burying it in snow, or of wrapping it in toilet paper —something playful and, to our thinking, harmless.
Matt said we should fix it.
We stared at him blankly, wondering if he was serious. Then he made a statement that hooked us completely: He said we should fix it anonymously.
The more we thought about it, the more we liked it. The image of Bishop Talbot calling members of the congregation to ask if they’d fixed his car had us smiling for days.
The logistics of such an undertaking were significant — for a group of teenagers, anyway. Matt took the fourth member of our group, Rick, and began scouring wrecking yards for a usable set of running boards. David worked in a carpet warehouse after school, so his job was to locate enough leftover carpet to redo the inside. I picked up a kit for rebuilding the carburetor. When Matt and Rick found some good running boards, they tore into them with naval jelly and steel wool to remove any traces of rust and to restore their shine. They even used some new miracle treatment called Armor-All to restore the vinyl.
We were ready.
We struck on a night when the Bishop had a whole series of meetings. We deployed in the parking lot like a silent formula one pit crew. Rick tore apart and rebuilt the carburetor, adjusted the gaps on the spark plugs, and reset the timing. I bolted on the shiny running boards and re-bolted a sagging bumper. Matt and David completely carpeted the inside of the car, then gave the interior a thorough cleaning.
Then we vanished.
I still laugh when I remember listening in as Bishop Talbot told my father about walking right past his own car — despite the fact it was the only car in the parking lot. He spoke of finally trying the key and of his surprise when the door opened. He eventually put the key in the ignition and fired it up, only to shut it down again when it started up on the first try. Poor Bishop Talbot actually checked the registration before driving it home.
The aftermath had us laughing for weeks.
Matt was subversive. Matt was different.
Matt was a genius.
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