The Park Across The Street

This story is inspired by true events. We recently moved to a house with a park and recreation centre on the other side of a busy street. We contacted our local municipality to request pedestrian access improvements and their response was: "It's too dangerous to put a crosswalk there because there is too much traffic."Yeah... no kidding.

The Park Across The Street

Jacob moved to a new house
With a park across the street
The only problem was
The traffic moved endlessly

There were cars and trucks
All night and all day
Every time he tried to get to the park
The speeding traffic blocked his way

So he tried to build a tunnel
That would go under the street
But the ground was too hard
His shovel broke on the concrete

Then he tried to build a bridge
So he could go over the cars
But he didn't have a lot of tools
And building bridges was hard

He even tried to write a letter
To the City Council and the Mayor
They replied "Thank you for your letter son,
But we're not putting a crosswalk there"

So Jacob became sad
The traffic passed relentlessly
He just wanted to play with his friends
At the park across the street

Then Jacob got an idea
And went and got his white chalk
If nobody else would help him
Then he would make his own crosswalk

But instead of drawing lines
In the 'old fashioned crosswalk way'
Jacob wrote big white letters
And spelled the word "P-L-A-Y"

And when the traffic passed by
They all stopped to see what he did
Then they got out of their cars
And remembered what it felt like to be a kid

And they all ran to the park
Laughing childishly
And Jacob could finally play
At the park across the street