I already had well-established fascination with openwire pole lines and insulators when this photo was taken when we were living on a country road in Brockton, MA. I did not have any insulators at the time (that first happened two years later in 1960) however I always enjoyed hand-drawing utility poles and putting together small replica poles like the one you see here assembled with two clothespins as double-crossarms. My creativity advanced in following years by using window shade rollers (wood) as poles and popsicle sticks for crossarms. Old cylindrical metal parts from tossed-away radios looked great as transformers and I commonly used my mother's thread as wire. Larger-scale pole line gear came about in the early 1960s when I used 4-inch-long nails as pins upon 1x3s as crossarms and if I was lucky to find an old glass teapot cover, they made for great finishing touches as insulators!

Owing to moves through my teens and early 20s, outdoor displays were put on hold for a while, especially on account of not having a backyard nor the room. But my insulator collection always travelled with me and stayed intact! By 1978 I bought my own house (where I still live). Soon thereafter I strung a few lines in my rather large backyard for outdoor lighting which was needed. This soon evolved into getting some poles (mostly around 12-15 feet high), crossarms, insulators, hardware and other gear which has been built traversing around my yard, mostly functional with old street lights, open-wire and old-school construction throughout to boot!