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