It just goes to show ya: Any classic tale worth its salt begins with an Odyssey

The image creates a new meaning for the Sly and the Family Stone classic, "I wanna take you higher'

Come and listen to a story bout a man named ... Thomas!

As Lebanon Voice readers know well, we'll go out of our way and occasionally out of our readership area - and our mind - to make sure you don't miss a quirky yet seminal, sea change story such as this.

So here it is.

On Wednesday around 6:40 a.m., Trooper Nicholas Iannone of the New Hampshire State Police stopped an overloaded vehicle traveling along Interstate 93 northbound in Londonderry.

For Iannone it must have been a Beverly Hillbillian/Grapes of Wrathian moment as he spied a 2003 Honda Odyssey loaded high with personal belonging atop the vehicle.

The intrepid driver, who had attempted to secure the load with electric cords and rope, was identified as Thomas McNeil, 57, of Belmont, who was issued a summons for negligent driving and non-Inspection.

The vehicle was towed from the scene by means of a tow bar in order to meet height restrictions. As Trooper Iannone was escorting the tow truck and vehicle off the highway, an item fell from the vehicle into the roadway.

While McNeil's actions are both problematic and disturbing, they do, however, present us with a bit of whimsy and wanderlust, at the least an innocuous game of cognitive skill and identification.

If you've got nothing to do heading into the long Fourth of July weekend ahead - which I doubt - you might challenge your friends to identify items seen in the picture.

Personally, I spy with my little eye ... a bike, a 32-inch HDTV (or at least its box) bicycles, a plaid shirt, a floor lamp, a rake, a shovel, a street brush, a work bench, a shopping cart, a tote bag, some aluminum foil, a wooden shelf, a ladder.

But more than such a trivial game this pik makes me think of myself as a young man where for a time it seemed like me and my young family were moving from town to town at least every couple of years, during which time I became a pro packing a U-haul.

Oh, I was good, but this guy is my sensei, for sure.

To add to the story theme's richness, he's driving an Odyssey for gosh sakes.

Could there be a sequel for "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" afterall? And it starts with this guy and this car.

It's an epic story of romance, adventure, having no rent money; it's got it all.

I can see myself pitching it hard as the great American novel.

Hey fan fiction writers at Nute High and Library and everywhere else, here's your summer writing project. Write the novel behind this picture. See you in September.