My regular routes –and even the irregular ones–haven’t taken me by any potential new residents of the boulevard in recent months.  However, just two days ago, I came across this pair of plush pals.  And as it so happens, I also know a tiny bit more of their history prior to these photos than I normally do.

Across the street from where these toys current rest, they both had been stuffed through and attached to a tall chain-link fence, one over the other.  Flowers were also attached there, for as long as they lasted.   They formed a memorial to the person indicated on this stuffed dog.  I can’t make out the name exactly, but I, too, hope that he or she currently rests in peace.

I’m not sure how or why these stuffed friends were finally pulled down.  They lie (though I doubt that they have been laid there with intention) just across the street from where they had been formerly, and formally, installed.  So, now, cast aside as they are, we welcome them as the newest residents of the Boulevard.  May they rest in play.

DAJ

mislaid@boulevardofbrokentoys.org

Desperately, she reaches out towards us as we pass by, towards anyone that will save her from her plight.  But it appears it is too late:  she is washed up and brushed aside both, left to hold onto her small bare vine in the wet leaves of a back alley.

Cinematic in a lurid kind of way, ain’t it?

DAJ

mislaid@boulevardofbrokentoys.org

Here lies our first dearly departed doll.  Her forlorn look, even from her one visible Kewpie-like eye, speaks immense sorrow.  What horrors has she witnessed?  From whose hands has she been tossed aside?

DAJ

mislaid@boulevardofbrokentoys.org

P.S. I’m still working how to take the best pictures with the camera on my new phone.  Hopefully, I’ll be doing better justice by our latest residents very soon.

This bouncy-seat/walker caught my eye every day for a week, but I never had a camera. Finally, I went back by and grabbed a couple shots. It’s a week later yet, and the garbage can is still filled to overflowing, and every day, it seems a little more melancholy than it did before.

This shot also brings up a good guideline. The s.o. asked if it wasn’t really fair game to use something that made it to the trash can. I agree with her in general principle. However, in this case, it isn’t as if I dug around in this person’s trash to find this memorial to a child’s first months discarded in the dustbin. I actually first noticed it commuting on my bike. So the guideline is this: if you could happen up or see the toy or cast-off item of youth during a stroll down the street, it’s fair game. Digging up your own child’s toys from behind the bushes in your backyard–not exactly the same thing. The Boulevard of Broken Toys came to me when my wife and I were walking around the streets and alleys of our old neighborhood, and we would come upon toys in the most unlikely places, and always seemed just a bit sad and forgotten. So with that genesis, I give the above guideline.

Until the next time, then, I’ll bounce away in purple dreams.

DAJ

mislaid@boulevardofbrokentoys.org

E-mail is up and running!  So, please send any submissions, suggestions, thoughts or questions to:  mislaid@boulevardofbrokentoys.org .  E-mail will be active soon for this domain.  In the meantime, though, feel free to send any submissions to:  djcontraption@immaculatecontraptions.org .  Help build the Boulevard into a repository of the dreams, laughter, and play these toys all represented!

DAJ