Below is the story that generated the request to see my digging and picking stuff. Note the poles currently have a mirror on one for project inspections and a U-shaped end for hanging XMAS lights on my 40' tree.

When most people see insulators on a shelf they see pretty glass, dollars, insulators, or just junk. When I look at my insulators, I can see most of my life. It is funny when I look at them what I see makes me smile, and in some cases makes you sigh.

I see a CD 127 that makes me laugh. I picked it Buckfield, Maine in 1988 with my friend Steve. I see Steve laughing his butt off because I was professing how skilled I was in the wilderness as I proceeded to get my foot stuck in a beaver dam and fall face first in the water.

I see a CD a CD 113 Hemi 12 that makes me laugh. I picked it in Ashtabula, Ohio in 1968 with my friend Albert who boosted me up the pole. I saw a car coming down the dusty, dirt road and got scared. I jumped off the pole and landed on the electrical barbed wire fence which I forgot about. It ripped the inside of my leg with 3 stripes from my ankle almost all the way to my personality. It was buzzing, I was stuck and bleeding, and Albert was crying (In laughter). I got off the fence after cutting my hand as well, jumped on my Yellow, 4-HP, Sears, mini-bike, and took off with albert on his Green, 3.5-HP, Sears mini-bike. By the time I got home my sock was full of blood and my sneaker was red and sloshing as I ran straight to the shower to wash everything off so I wouldn't get killed by my parents. There was blood everywhere. I still have scars. Albert is now the Judge in town. LOL!!!! Writing this makes me smile.

I see a CD 145 that makes me sad. I see a CD 145 BROOKFIEL with the "FAB" typo that I got in Ashtabula, in 1970 with my friend Wayne. He boosted me up the pole, I climbed up and thought I saw the typo. Back then, I thought it would be worth a million dollars like a double struck coin. (It books for $5.) This was an abandoned line in the woods. Many of the poles were down. This was the first time I "rode down a pole". So, I climbed out to the end. My weight at the end of the crossarm was too much for the pole. So, as it fell, was trying not to get smashed by the pole when it hit the ground like Wile E. Coyote trying to stay on top of the boulder as it fell off a cliff. LMAO. Wayne, another good friend was crying (in-laughter) at me not with me. Wayne died in a car accident less than 10 years later. He was 23. I miss him.

I see a 7-UP Green, CD 162 Hemingray that makes me laugh. I was too old and fat to climb this pole. My friend Jack and I were in tears when we got these in 2012 in Needham, Massachusetts. I showed him my 30-foot paint pole which I modified to be a bopper, twister, and dual-action-cutter for removing insulators on poles.

The bopper is simply the rubber piece at the bottom of a crutch mounted to the end of the pole to "BOP" the edge of the skirt and spin them off.

The twister is the end of a paint roller brush which was meant to screw onto the pole. Except I reshaped the roller to a "U" shape, cover it with surgical tube to make it sticky, and then put it on the top on the insulators to screw them off.

The Dual-action-cutter is two things. One side is a thick hack-saw blade mounted on the side of the pole for cutting the wires. The other is a spring-loaded wire cutter with a 30-foot nylon string for snipping wire from the ground like a tree cutters pole lopper.

CSX was taking down this line and gave us permission to "knock ourselves out but be careful". So, I did the pole work and Jack has the baseball glove. There were two per pole on the bottom crossarm. We got a bunch of them. We also got a DIAMOND P, which he has. Jack is my best friend. I look at that piece and I smile.

I have pieces my daughter and I dug and picked; pieces I found from Canada and Oregon to Mississippi and Florida; pieced given to me by friends that are no longer with us; my favorite piece; and my first piece.

I could go on forever. Every piece in my collection is on display. Nothing is in a box. My house is open to everyone. There are many memories in many of these pieces. Many!

So, when I sit in my home office in my basement and see these on the shelves, I smile.

God bless you all!

And don't forget, I collect threadless. LOL.

Dario