It all began at a mine in Colorado in the mid-1960' s. We were spending the summer in the mountains. My brother and cousins talked our parents into letting us poke around an old mine down the canyon. My brother Jim, cousin David and I were budding earth scientists at the time. (We all subsequently earned advanced degrees in Geochemistry from the Colorado School of Mines). We managed to keep life and limb in order, brought in some neat rocks, were totally covered with dirt from head to foot, and secretly started making plans to go exploring in the adits. So we set about planning the adventure. David and his younger brother would be leaving in a few days so we had to work fast. We would need some string to keep track of our way, flash lights and anti-bear weapons and some bags to bring back all the gold laden quartz we would find in a vein the miners missed. But we were all rather short on ready capital so we made several treks over the hill to the local dump and scrounged up pop bottles and returned them to the lodge for a whole two cents apiece. We also found several pounds of other recyclable metals and had to get a loan on later payment. 

Our parents watched all of this frenzied activity with some degree of cautious skepticism and took in the hints we were dropping, letting them roll on by without much comment. Then one evening we announced we were all ready for the grand expedition. We had 500 yards of string with more marking than a barber pole, two flash lights apiece, water, bags, bear pokers, snacks, and lots of well planned arguments to counter any crazy parental objections. 

At last my father agreed to accompany us and we could hardly sleep that night. So with some trepidation at the gaping entrance, we turned on our flashlights and ventured into the dark abyss. There was some broken glass and beer cans at the entrance and some strange spikes in the wall, but we thought nothing of them. My father was paying more attention to the walls and top (or back) of the mine and noted the presence of several glass objects hanging on metal spikes further in. We did not have a hacksaw so we passed them by. We were more intent on exploring and finding the gold vein. It took longer to roll up the muddied twine than to walk in. We popped back out all covered with yellow muck but feeling quite accomplished. 

Later that summer at a Denver rock shop, Dad was asking the owner about these glass things we had seen in the mine. The rock hound was also an insulator collector and had a large collection of these glass things. He showed my father his insulator collection and was very interested in the insulator with a hole all the way through it. We did not get a chance to get back to the mine that summer but laid plans for another trip in the next year.

The following summer we headed up another expedition. My brother, Rich, a close friend from California, two Dads and I lugged hammers, saws, and lights into the mine intent on getting these insulators. We at least knew what to call them now! We found some broken pieces of the insulators at the entrance and like a blood hound we bolted in, only glancing at our bear getters we had left the year before. We were only 75 feet in when we found our first whole insulator. Water droplets refracted the light beams across the shadows, transforming the black object into a glistening fiery emerald jewel. In all we got six or seven of the gems and returned to the daylight all excited, dirty, and of course very late. The wives and mothers were not impressed. 

I remember going into the rock shop holding an almost mint insulator by the peg. The owner was discussing some rock business with a customer so my brother and I politely waited looking at the neat stuff he had in his shop. We had spent many years hunting rocks all over the West and understood the value of jade, opals, petrified wood and the like. The owner looked over and breaking off his conversation in mid sentence almost shouted "I'll give you ten bucks for that right now!"

Wow, a whole ten bucks! I thought the guy was nuts. I looked at my brother and his eyes were screaming YES. My father let us make the transaction on our own. We even got a purple WGM beehive. We saw his collection, were wowed by all the glass but didn't know the first thing about what we were viewing. Our collection now had two insulators, a "B-1" mine insulator and the WGM beehive. Life has never been the same.

Back in California, Rich, Jim and I began the quest to find more insulators for fun and profit. The way-back machine is set for 1968, free love, drugs, and hippies abounding in California. Going after insulators was a safe way to ask for the family car and be by ourselves for an afternoon. However, we had to complete all of those mundane suburb chores before leaving. Parents sure know how to bribe a kid. But they knew that we were not getting involved in all the crazy behavior because we would come back with a station wagon full of insulators. My father also accompanied us on some sorties and would take us into the Sierras on occasion. 

We found a telegraph/telephone line running through Niles Canyon that had most of the lines down. This was ripe pickings. We found mostly Hemingray 40's and 42's but an occasional Brookfield signal popped up, but the thrill was . a purple Whitall Tatum or a California (CD152).

One night Rich and I double dated and our dates found themselves roaring into Niles Canyon-OOH La la. But not so fast there girls, we were set on an insulator quest. We had found a pole with four double sets of cross arms loaded with purple and smoky CD 152 Californias. Only one small problem, the pole was right by the road and nearly reached a train trestle so very far up. This job was a night foray only. We had planned this jaunt for several weeks. The girls got to wait in a warm car while we put our plan into action. Rich boosted me up to the foot holds that began about 12 feet up and I climbed up this 60 plus foot pole.

I filled a bag with Hemingrays as a trial and lowered the bag on the rope. So much for our best of planning, the rope was just 8 feet short of hitting the ground. So I let the bag do a two foot free fall into Rich's outstretched arms. No broken glass, so we continued. Now as fate would have it, a train came by. I could only wave at the engineer, who was at nearly eye level with me. He must have thought this was some kind of high school prank to show how cool one was. It was really cold hanging on up there, unable to unscrew any more gems until the train passed because a full bag was dangling half way down the pole and we could not communicate over the roar of the train. We were nearly finished when I got this stabbing glare of a flash fight in my eyes. It was the Police. 

They wanted to know what we were doing. "Well, Sir, we're getting these insulators for our collection." "Do you have permission to do this?" came back a gruff voice from the dark. What a loaded question. We had talked with a guy in a line house in Newark, about getting insulators along the line and it was O.K. with him. This was the same line but 20 miles to the east, sooo. And our parents knew where we were, sooo. "Yes. This guy in a line shack in Newark said we could get the insulators. This is the only time we had between school and sports." They must have thought we were nuts, abandoning two pretty girls in Niles Canyon on a Thursday night to get insulators. They walked back along the tracks to their car and roared off to get some real action. We lugged four very heavy bags of gems up to the car. We were all totally scuzzy and there was the curfew to think of -- we had to get back before the bewitching hour. All for the best I am sure. 

My mother faceted several pieces of broken insulators, coming up with unique patterns and grand names. They displayed these new gems in their showcase at many rock shows over the years. My brother and I left our 125 piece collection and several hundred extras with our parents while we scaled the academic heights. Collecting waned during these years; however, insulator tales and pole climbing feats were swapped over a pint of brew on Saturday nights as friendships were etched. (Male bonding had yet to make the vernacular, we just enjoyed another night in the dorms with some friends and an illicit quart of beer. Life was simpler then.) 

Then came the Peace Corps and traveling the South Pacific. Jim and I noted the beautiful purple jewels on the poles in Australia while the bus whizzed along on its route. We were making do on $2.00 a day living out of a backpack, staying in parks, and the outback. We were loaded with gem quality citrine, sapphires, and topaz we had found ourselves, plus one kangaroo hide. Insulators were just not on the agenda.

We both ended up in graduate school in Golden, CO. I picked up a few more pieces but time and money were both in very short supply. One summer working in the West for the U.S. Geological Survey, Jim and I managed to log many miles of adits and slopes in dozens of mines but not ever a hint of an insulator. Jim was married now and with kids. I was pursuing the next degree and living the life of an itinerant geologist, tramping the West, the Virgin Islands and Saudi Arabia in search of the next billion dollar ore deposit. This makes for many a story but St. John and St. Thomas are a geologist's paradise.

I finally found a charming wood nymph on St. Croix's beaches, married her, and she helped me through graduate school the following year. A few pieces drifted in but we were starving with grace, research does not pay all that well. So in 1989 the Army made me an offer we could not refuse and off to Chicago we went. We tried to get out and see the countryside as much as possible and started stopping at antique shops as a break for our two little ones and a "lookieloo". I picked up a few insulators and Syndia began collecting Blue Willow. A good trade off. 

We were in an antique shop in Wisconsin or northern Illinois and saw a flyer for the Carol Stream Insulator sale and swap. What a dream come true. I had never been to a show devoted to insulators. We walked in the door and were both in awe. A phone call to Carol and John got us their books along with a subscription to Crown Jewels of the Wire. This was one of the greatest birthday gifts a guy could get. We now spent a lot of time tracking down old lines all over the Illinois and Wisconsin. Collecting insulators and examining the history of a line told by its insulators is a hobby the whole family began to enjoy. We also do a lot of natural history observation with our two inquisitive girls while wandering along a track or following a line of downed poles.

The arrival of "Crown Jewels" was and is a big day for us. We pour over the stories and carefully plan how to get to as many shows as possible. Now we had an excuse to travel to Michigan. The show in Ann Arbor occurs when all the fall colors are in full profusion. Being from the West I had never seen so much color in the trees. As it turned out I spent more on film developing than insulators. The show was beautiful and now I was re-hooked. I was an under three dollar a piece shopper and would spend a great amount of time pondering a purchase. So Syndia took the girls to the bathroom and happened to pass the gift shop. The women in our families got fabulous niobium jewelry for Christmas that year. I was to make that same mistake two years running. Our gems now needed a home to catch the sunlight so l made a display shelf from driftwood I found along Lake Michigan that fit in the apartment window. Syndia got a china hutch for the Blue Willow. 

Three Muncie CD 303/310's and two Hemingray signals
 on Big Timber, MT lines 45 miles west of Billings.

One of our longest trips for several years was getting to Nickerson, Nebraska. We planned our leave so we could stop at the show on the way to see my parents. We would roar out of Chicago at 4 a.m., throwing all girls in the car in their jammies, pass all McDonalds except for an emergency stop and get to Nickerson about 3 p.m. What a fun show, it's small, and it's in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. Anyone who has not made it there must put it on their calendar.

We moved to Alabama for six months in 1993 while I attended a training course at Fort McClellan. What rich new ground to cover. The best piece I got there was a SBT&T (CD 112) at a flea market that put me out the sum of $1.50. We ventured over to Georgia one weekend when the Dixie Jewels Insulator Club was having a meeting, cookout and swap. We were immediately taken in by these charming people and joined the club. We also got to share the pain of loosing a new friend who died suddenly.

So now we're in Utah for a while. I get to travel around ten states with my duties and often get a chance to take the family. Driving through Montana last month we stopped in Big Timber and there on the power lines were Hemingray 303/310 in all their splendid glory. It was a real thrill to see these centurions still holding up. I slammed the car to a stop along the side of the road and plowed over to the tracks. Seventeen pictures later I was out of film and got to carry four scratched up little legs back to the car. We also found a mint CD 327 in an antique shop in Billings. I am sure glad we travel in a minivan because I still stop and gather rocks. We carry many old blankets and newspapers for such occasions to keep the two hobbies from having it out like the calico cat and the gingham dog. 

Three straw colored Pyrex stackers catch the sunlight 
on the line between Billings and 
Custer Battlefield/Little Big Horn Battlefield.

My brother is not yet an avid collector, but he gets to exotic places with his job and of course I bug him about insulators. His last series of trips have been to South America. It is inconceivable why a language and cultural barrier would prevent anyone from bringing back tons of glass from the hinterland of Bolivia. Never mind that the people do not have electricity in the remote regions of the Alto Plano. Jim did find a shop that had several glass insulators. He sent me a beautiful lime green VFO, similar to a CD 221. This jewel is number 600 in our ever growing collection. Of course I figured any other pieces would make great traders. Jim got a friend to send the others; however this gentleman simply put the gems in a box and they arrived as powdered shards. Oh, such a black day.

Almost any hobby can bring a family close, cultivate a sense of inquiry, and expand the horizons of knowledge. Insulator collecting spans three generations in our families and we have enjoyed it despite some of the real and perceived dangers. Our family ventures into much of the country that otherwise would go unseen if it was not for the pursuit of locating a dusty jewel sitting forgotten on some back shelf of an out of the way antique shoppe along some blue highway we decided to travel instead of letting lethargy take over, watching the great boob tube for the want of anything else to do. I know others enjoy this hobby as much is we do and we wish to thank all those wonderful people who have made our lives so much richer. .