The story in brief
Ultimately, the video illustrates how this quirky town turned a municipal nightmare into a source of local folklore and friendly camaraderie, where surviving the bewildering traffic acts as a lighthearted filter for welcoming easygoing newcomers.
Full transcript
America is our theme this Sunday morning during the week I travel around the country in an old bus trying to find out if there isn't something going on besides floods and wars and politics and other calamities looking for American Originals on the road I found one in Stuart Florida America's most original Urban intersection tourists with weak nerves…
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America is our theme this Sunday morning during the week I travel around the country in an old bus trying to find out if there isn't something going on besides floods and wars and politics and other calamities looking for American Originals on the road I found one in Stuart Florida America's most original Urban intersection tourists with weak nerves have been known to drive miles out of their way to avoid this place but in the interests of Journalism we gritted our teeth and drove the on the road bus right through Stuart Florida's confusion corner we made it too the local story is that seven raccoon Trails converged here the raccoon trails are now Colorado Avenue Camden Avenue
Flagler Avenue the Dixie Highway East Ocean Boulevard and oh yes the Florida East Coast Railroad there are a few signs West South and North you notice are all the same direction at confusion corner and there are arrows painted on the pavement but there really are no rules when seven highways and a railroad cross at the same place you make up your own rules and Ingenuity counts oh there's a worried looking man right there yep every now and then you do uh see some genuine confusion here there is a lot of confusion here Tom Weber is editor of the Stuart news I think some of us think that one reason that Stewart is such a congenial
town is that if a newcomer comes here and comes to this corner and uh can't pass through it in Good Humor he's inclined just to get out of town and go somewhere else he doesn't want to live in a place that's got a crazy corner like this Tom Weber's darwinian Theory only the congenial survive and Stewart is supported by the populace the State Department of Transportation wanted to use 165 thousand dollars and 11 traffic lights to straighten out this mess Stewart ran the engineers out of town it kind of likes the mess the way it is there is a move to have it declared a National Historic Monument in fact Stewart is so proud of
confusion Corner that it has put in park benches for spectators this is a front row seat for the best show in town let's swing around confusion Corner hey when corner light to shine yeah let's swing around local songwriter Clifford buckosh has even provided music for the show we'll just go see Dome Promenade Adam and left and drive away swing your wheel round and round and take a tour of old downtown some toot their horn and shake their fists just give it a smile on the flick of your wrist take your turn but if you're new let your neighbors wave you through and swing around confusion Corner then wait for No Light to shine yeah let's
swing around confusion Corner cause we've got it all straight in our minds oh and so confusion corner has been elevated to balladri and folklore a place where if you are confused as this man obviously is you can always count on the patience and Good Humor of your fellow man to see you safely through where else in the universe can you find a friendly place like that yeah let's see yeah cause we got it all straight in our minds yeah let's swing around confusion cause we've got it all straight in our minds
