Inspector Gadget’s True Religious Preference
A couple of months before the whole Nauvoo thang began, those of us for whom it wasn’t geographically prohibitive met in the Harmon Building1 on BYU campus, met some of the Joseph Smith Academy faculty and were briefed on what our Nauvoo experience would be like.
I only knew one of the students there and couldn’t remember her name to save my life—or six people’s lives, for that matter!2 I felt a little awkward because I was newly engaged and wasn’t sure how to interact with single women anymore, and here I was in a room full of them! Lloydel was the only other guy at the meeting, and several of the girls would tell him to his face later in the semester that by the end of that meeting they were convinced he was a dork.3 Or, as a very concerned Jules put it to her mother during an emergency long-distance telephone call later that night, “I’m going to Nauvoo, and the only guys are a dork and Inspector Gadget!”
I then, as you have no doubt determined by skillful application of the process of elimination, was Inspector Gadget.
I never would have thought to describe myself that way, but okay. I had a fedora-like hat, but mine was black (not gray). I had a trenchcoat on, but mine was singlebreasted and teal of all colors (not gray)! You remember my coat—it was the one ruffians on the Greyhound were going to strip off my dead body. (Incidentally, I tried to give it to my brother for his mission to the Great White North, but apparently teal isn’t an appropriate mission color.)
As far as I know, Jules remains the only person who has ever said I look like Inspector Gadget. At least, she was the only one to ever say it to my non-Don Knottsy face.4 A much more common scenario was this:
[SCENE: THERIC trudging through the snow
towards a group of STUDENTS. He is wearing
COAT and HAT]
STUDENT 1: Oh, Theric! It’s you!
STUDENT 2: Yeah, we were wondering who that Amish guy was.
Fall Semester, I hear, the Nauvoo students take their Big Trip much earlier in the semester. Had we done so, then the dinner we shared on an Amish farm would have served to demonstrate a very simple fact: Amish Men Don’t Wear Teal.
So, for all those of you who have ever taken a part in that great debate on one of the most ubiquitous questions of literature and film, now you can rest quietly—for you know the answer.
Inspector Gadget’s religious leanings?
He was Mormon.
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Thanks for revisiting Nauvoo with me. I would love to hear your thoughts.