Mr. Toad is On The Loose - Upper Mount Bethel's Institute Road Partially Closed

Northampton County has issued a news release to warn that a portion of Institute Road, located in Upper Mount Bethel Tp, will be closed to automobiles for the next month or so. Officially, the reason for this is to protect frogs, toads and lizards who cross at night without looking both ways. That's garbage, As anyone who's read Wind in the Willows knows, the real reason is to protect the public from the entirely menacing antics of Mr. Toad. He lives in retirement along Institute Rd. He's a good-natured fellow, but has a rather nasty habit of stealing motorcars and then smashing them beyond recognition. He's squandered fis family fortune paying off multiple claims. 

Mr Toad had been serving a 20-year sentence imposed by Judge Morganelli, who described Mr. Toad as an "incorrigible rogue and hardened ruffian whom we see cowering in the dock before us." Judge Morganelli told Mr. Toad that if he ever saw him again, on any charge whatsoever, he would deal with him very harshly.

Despite being hauled off by the myrmidons of the law, Mr., Toad was furloughed during the pandemic because of a warts outbreak at the jail.  

So the closure of Institute Road, ostensibly as a crossing for amphibians and  other creatures  who live in the nearby swamps, is actually intended to keep Mr. Toad away from cars.