Thursday 26 May 2016

Cartown

Everyone in Cartown, 
Liked to drive their car a lot
But there was one little boy named Sam
Who most certainly did not

Cartown was a place
That was designed for one mode
So everywhere you looked
There was cars and their were roads

People drove to the stores
And drove to the beach
People drove to their work
And even drove while watching tv

People drove all hours
From sunrise to nighttime
Some liked driving so much
They drove three cars at the same time

The traffic always worsened
And people complained of the stop and go
The solution to that problem
Was always to build more and bigger roads

Gone was the greenspace
Swallowed up by the new lanes
Parks became parkways
High trees became highways

And the Cartownians were always busy
Always rushing to stay on time
People rarely ever paused to say,
Hello, How are you? or Isn’t this nice?

Cartown was so busy
That it lost its sense of place
It was no longer a town
Just one large paved space

Sam had had enough
It was time for a change!
He was going to stop all the cars
By blocking the town’s main highway

So in the darkness of night
He climbed up the biggest hill around
And he pushed a giant boulder towards
The City of Cartown

The rock rolled down the slope
And stopped in the perfect place
Right in the middle
Of the 16 lane highway

The next morning the Cartownians
All rolled out of bed
Jumped in their cars
For another day ahead

But as their engines started moving
All the cars were forced to stop
It wasn’t just bad traffic
It was a total gridlock

People honked, and screamed
And cried out about how they were late
But as long as the rock remained
The gridlock would not abate

It quickly became obvious
That it would take weeks to remove the rock
So one little girl opened her car door
And decided it would be easier to walk

So she got out of the car
And used the transportation of her two feet
And it didn’t take long
Before others followed her lead

Soon everyone left their cars behind
And chose much different modes
Using bicycles and roller-skates 
Wagons and wheel barrows

There were stilts, and unicycles
And cross-country skis
One man even built a bicycle
Out of pepperoni and cheese

As the weeks passed by
Everyone forgot about their cars
It was quieter, and greener
And at night you could actually see the stars

And Sam saw something
He hadn’t seen in a long while
He saw people pass by each other
Say hello, and then smile

It seemed everyone was happier
From ages one to one-hundred and three
Cause the people were moving around
The way nature intended them to be

But then a bulldozer finally arrived
That was big enough to remove the rock
Everyone cheered out loud
And back to their cars they flocked

But just as the bulldozer
Was about to push the boulder out of the way
Sam climbed up to the top of the rock
Cause he had something to say

He said, “Being a great place
Isn’t about driving quickly from A to B.
This rock isn’t a wall
It’s the cornerstone of our happy community”

Everyone paused
They all couldn’t help but to agree
A place that was built for cars
Was a place where they no longer wanted to be

So they chose to leave the rock
On the highway it remains perfectly still
And from that day forward
Cartown became known as Happyville

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