There was a little episode on the lane yesterday. For backdrop, picture a skinny, gravel road that meanders through the woods to a point where a weary, wayworn driver might seriously begin to wonder where the Hell he was going !

The driver can’t panic. He needs to keep his wits about him and just stay on the lane.

There is a spot up at the north end of the lane where it is joined by a bridle path that has been used for ages by horse and rider. The path eventually empties into a hayfield that offers spectacular views spanning over into Pennsylvania .

Yesterday a Fed Ex driver was making a delivery to a resident on the lane when apparently he panicked. There is really no plausible reason for him to have steered his truck off the lane and down the bridle path, but that’s what he did.

Sometimes people deride country folks for being a little obtuse, but that would have been the pot calling the kettle black in this case. Who knows? Maybe the driver had just left his city mettle back in Bayonne, but sure enough, he drove his little Fed Ex truck into the hayfield and got it seriously stuck in wet ground.

One thing lead to another. Then another. The driver eventually commandeered a tow truck to come pull him out.

Then the tow truck got stuck . That, of course, required a second tow truck. That truck got stuck, also. Can my reader see the makings of an old Laurel & Hardy skit here ? Maybe Red Skelton ?

My neighbor, Phil Rochelle, whose hayfield was being chewed up by spinning Fed Ex tires, found no choice but to fire up his old stand-by… a John Deere 4020.

There was a time in these parts when possession of a 4020 was an extra feather in a farmer’s cap. Surely it was and still is powerful enough to pull out five Fed Ex trucks at once, but seldom is there a call for that.

Bottom Line ? Eventually all trucks were pulled out of the Springtime mire , but it wasn’t FedEx’s proudest moment. Their drivers did not prove themselves to be the invincible lads that they always are.

One is reminded of a memorable line in a 1979 Fed Ex tv ad. .”When it absolutely, positively must be there overnight.”

Yesterday they may have slipped a notch in their former bravado !