Fabric and Wooden Puppet

Day 171: Fabric and Wooden Puppet

I always liked this puppet better than either of the kids. Perhaps they didn't like it because its nose got chewed off by our dog, Chester, soon after we got it. Or perhaps it's not objectively very much fun, but I like it because I have a nostalgic attachment to old fashioned toys, and a fond memory to go with this one in particular. We bought it for them on the Rue de Passy in Paris. Our first trip away, a whole week in an apartment tucked behind Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cite, with its narrow cobblestone streets and clear December air. We left the kids with my parents while we attended my brother- and sister-in-law's wedding, back in those long gone days - over a decade already! - before cell phones or texting or Skyping, when a trip to Europe meant you only got in touch if there was an emergency.

The little shop seemed charmingly nineteenth century, filled with wooden tops and jacob's ladders and rag dolls, all made from materials that have been used for toys for hundreds of years. I remember very well the first time I went into a Toys-R-Us, just before Emma Jane was born, and experienced the supreme frustration of not being able to get where I wanted to go because the display armature forces you past aisle after aisle of plastic toys. I had the jarring realization that there was an entire massive industry of stuff of which I had been blissfully unaware. The little Parisian boutique felt like an antidote.

It's been many years since I've shopped at a Toys R Us, and many more since that trip to Paris. Without a nose, this little fellow may end up another resident on the Island of Misfit Toys. But it's time he gets out of the closet and into circulation.