by Becky Rule

This time of year I enjoy the smell of the dressings on the fields – the pungent odor of manure, a promise bounty to come.

Reminds me of the day my friend Neil English, carpenter and poet, called me on the phone, all excited.  Well, as excited as a dyed-in-the-wool yankee gets. He’d just had an experience that would make a good Becky Rule story, he said.  “Do tell,” I said.

Seems Neil was headed up North Road in Epsom, driving behind a fellow in a little blue Subaru, low to the ground with Massachusetts plates.  The fellow seemed confused, possibly lost, slowing to check road signs and turn offs, then speeding up. When they reached the big hill, the fellow in the little blue Subaru, low to the ground with Massachusetts plates, revved his vehicle for the steep climb.  Neil followed, a safe distance behind.

Unbeknownst to either of them, Charlie Batchelder had preceded them up the hill. He’d thumped the big frost heave, causing the tail gate on his truck to flap open. When Charlie got to the steep part, his substantial load of manure sluiced out the back, creating a slick of the ripe stuff that covered a good portion of North Road.

The fellow in the little blue Subaru plowed straight into the slick.  When he hit dead center, he made a mistake. He stopped.

There he sat, up to the wheel wells.  Neil stopped, too.  He saw Charlie Batchelder walking down the hill with a shovel that looked awful small, considering.

“That big load of manure in the road and the poor fellow in the little blue Subaru stuck to the wheel wells. What a mess!” I said, “What did you do, Neil?”

“I had some place to go,” he said.  “I drove around it.”

Subsequently Neil wrote a poem about the incident.  I wrote a short story.  One time we performed the poem and the story together at the Belknap Mill in Laconia on Yankee Night.  To our delight, Charlie Batchelder had made the drive north and seemed to enjoy the creative license we took with his spill.  Don’t know what became of the fellow in the little blue Subaru, low to the ground with Massachusetts plates. Hope he found whatever he was looking for.