An elephant, a foggy night and a senior prank

An elephant, a foggy night, a senior prank and a followup prank that ran for 41 years

As a senior prank, our high school had a tradition of stealing the statue from in front of the local “Bob’s Big Boy” restaurant and putting it in our school. In my senior year, I guess the manager at the restaurant had gotten tired of it, so he had that statue chained down to it’s pedestal with heavy duty chains.

My friends and I were sitting around at lunch discussing that turn of events and I suggested we head down to the Long Beach Pike and steal one of their fiberglass elephants and put it in the school. The Pike was sort of a poor man’s Disneyland with carnival rides that were about the quality you would see at the County Fair. Several of us agreed to a plan and several others realized they had homework to do that night, or something.

So on the set night, the 8 of us, who had agreed to the plan, met up at the school and convoyed to the Long Beach Pike. It turned out the rock band UFO (this was in 1977) was having a concert next door to The Pike, and it was just ending, so there were Long Beach P.D. cops everywhere. We decided to stay in the area for a couple of hours, until the area cleared out.

At about 1 Am, the fog had rolled in thick and heavy. We sneaked into The Pike and were just about to pick up the elephant when we saw the beam of a security guard’s flashlight. We ran off in different directions, three not to be seen until the next day at school. Three of us hid in one of the rides. After waiting awhile, we went back to the elephant and met up with two of our friends. We picked up the elephant, took it to my friend’s truck, loaded it up and headed out of Long Beach. I jumped into the bed of the truck, because my ride to Long Beach was one of the guys who disappeared for the rest of the evening when the security guard’s flashlight beam was spotted.

We reached the east end of Long Beach and hit a desolate stretch of road that leads into Westminster. We thought we were home free. We only had a few miles to go, it was foggy and we figured the likelihood of a cop being out was pretty slim. We were mistaken. A Westminster cop rolled by, made a U-turn, got behind us and lit us up. My friend pulled over. We had a plan for this eventuality. Our alibi was that the elephant came from our friend’s parent’s small amusement park in Northern California that had closed down. Clever.

The cop walked up, eyed the three of us in the bed of the truck, Glanced at the elephant, shook his head and continued to the driver’s window.

“Do you know you have a headlight out, son?”

“THEELEPHANTCAMEFROMHISGRANDPARENTSAMUSEMENTPARK UPNORTHANDTHEYGAVEITTOUS!”

“Smooth”, I thought, “Reeeal smooooth.”

“Did this elephant come from the Long Beach Pike?”, the cop tiredly asked.

Yes, Sir.”, my friend confessed and who wouldn’t under that intense interrogation?

“You boys sit still.” The officer walked back to his patrol car and, I guess, got on the radio and asked for backup, because within a few minutes about 5 police cars were there. Slow night in Westminster.

We were all handcuffed and taken to the Westminster police station. I could hear the cops calling our various parents. The conversation with my parents went a little different than the others.

“Hello. Is this the mother of Wayde Farrell?… What the…?”, I heard the phone slam and redialed

“Hello. This is Officer Smith with the Westminster P.D. Is this the mother of Wayde Farrell? We have your son in custody. Gawd damnit!” I heard the phone slam again and redialed again.

“Ma’am! This is Officer Smith with the Westminster P.D. If you hang up on me one more time, I will ship your son off to juvenile hall and he can spend the night there! (pause) Your son has been arrested for stealing an elephant statue from the Long Beach Pike, along with some of his pals. (pause) No M’am, this is not a prank call. (pause) Go ahead and check, but your son is not in his bed, he is in a cell about 15 feet away from me. (longer pause) Ma’am, I don’t know what you saw in your son’s bed, but I guarantee you, it was not your son. (pause) I’ll wait. (extended pause) Fine, do you know where we are located? (pause) I’ll see you then.”

So my parent’s came down and picked me up. In California, juveniles are typically released to their parents. On the way home I was expecting my dad to blow his stack, but he was strangely quiet and subdued. My mom explained her side of the conversation. She said initially she thought it was a prank call and hung up. Then when he threatened to send me to juvenile hall, she went to see if I was in bed. I had stuffed some blankets under my sheets and one of my mom’s wigs, on it’s styrofoam head, on my pillow, facing away from the door. So, when she looked in the first time she thought I was there. When she told the cop I was in bed, he assured her I was in jail, so she went to check again. This time she went into my room and gently touched “my shoulder". The head rolled off the bed, she screamed and told the officer they would be right down. Meanwhile, because I was always bringing different critters home as pets, my dad thought we had stolen a REAL elephant and wondered where I thought I was going to keep it and what I thought I was going to feed it.

The next day, everyone who hadn't been arrested (and those who had "homework" that night") was eager to know what happened.  Really, they were worried that we had snitched them out.  The first guy that asked me about it agreed to help me prank the rest of them.  I assured him that they were all safe.  As far as the police were concerned, they had caught everyone involved, but if anyone else were to ask, the story was that we had told the cops everything and they had said they would be coming to the school today to pick everyone else up.  Those guys were worried sick.  When the cops didn't come, I just assumed that everyone knew we were pulling their chains.  Apparently that wasn't the case.

A few months ago, in 2018, 41 years later, I went to a birthday party and one of the guys who had "homework" that night (*cough Dave Dierking cough*)started talking about the time in high school when I snitched on everyone.  I didn't know what he was talking about.  He scoffed and said, "You remember."
"I don't have any idea what you are talking about."
"The elephant?", he prompted.
I knew right away what incident he was referring to, but I still didn't have a clue as to what he meant by saying I snitched on everyone.
"You gave the cops everybody's name that was involved!"
I had completely forgotten about the prank and was getting annoyed that he was insisting I snitched.
"No, I fuckin' didn't!  What the hell are you talking about?"
"Matt said, that you said, you gave the cops everybody's name that was involved."
That's when I spark of recollection started and I remembered our plan to prank the other guys.  The cops never came to arrest, or interview anybody else, but I guess *cough Dave Dierking cough* was unable to put two and two together and figure out it had been a prank.  A prank, it turns out, that ran for 41 years I guess.

(any one who was involved in this can feel free to 'fess up in the comments. The statute of limitations has run out.)

Oh, after that incident in 1977, I decided to become a cop.