Old Photographs and Wild Dreams

 In the late nineteen nineties, during a construction boom, several blocks of a downtown Los Angeles city businesses closed their doors to make way for high rise luxury apartments, organic grocery concerns, workout spaces, and coffee shops. One of the stores scheduled for demolition was an antique shop with an eclectic array of sundries for sale. Since it was the last of a third-generation family, when faced with extinction, they were happy to retire in a sunny climate with a generous nest egg. They held a “going out of business sale” event in which every item must go.

Some large items were from old circus venues and sideshows such as authentic costumes, old swords, and historical documents. Stuffed animals sat beside some prize period furniture. After the sale was over, the shop was bare except for a stack of old dusty boxes in the storage area. The boxes were moved to the alley near the dumpsters and forgotten. That same night a windstorm attacked the city and blew the boxes into the air and all over the streets. One such box contained old photographs, some over one hundred years old. As they blew across the city and were picked up and wondered at, stories came alive and fired a few new, wild dreams. Here are those stories.