Today's New York Times has an article about people who tie stuffed animals to the front of their trucks and vans. This photo is by Robert Marbury of the esteemed Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists. In 2000, Robert photographed hundreds of trucks with plushies on the grill. From the NYT article:
(Marbury) said he had once asked a trash hauler why he had a family of three mismatched bears strapped to his rig.
"He said: 'Yo, man, I drive a garbage truck. How am I going to get the ladies to look at me?' " Mr. Marbury recalled.
Mr. Marbury, who holds a degree in anthropology, added that the battered bear and his brethren had at least one foot in the vernacular cultures of Latin America, where the festive and the ghoulish enjoy a symbiotic relationship. Most of the drivers whose trucks he photographed were Hispanic, he said…
A few months ago, Roberto Argueto spotted a floppy doll in the gutter near the headquarters of Sasco Construction in Brooklyn. The doll had brown pigtails, a white bonnet and the bluest eyes. He hung her from the front wall of the flatbed of his truck with a coat hanger, and he named her Margaret.
"I like the doll," said Mr. Argueto, 39. "She's pretty."
The flatbed carries some unforgiving payloads – scaffolding, bricks, sandbags – but Mr. Argueto protects Margaret.
"When I put something back there, I try to cover her," he said.
