You know how it goes: A friend of a friend of yours has a barn/attic/basement full of insulators. Collected them years ago when he was a lineman in Colorado/Illinois/Anywhere. Your friend talks to his friend, gives you the phone number and a meeting is arranged to check out these insulators. Your heart heavy with anticipation, you drive to the location. After all, you have to touch every insulator because one of them might be “THE JEWEL.”

Robert and I were visiting his parents in Denver when his Dad heard, through friends, etc., of a cache of insulators in a warehouse. After several phone calls, and who/what/when/where was established, Rob and his dad jumped in the van to go look at the insulators.

What we had here was 12--Count Them!--12 boxes full of beehive twists and Hemingray 42s, averaging 25 insulators per box. Honorable, steadfast insulators all, but not a king’s ransom in insulators.

So, what to do with them? Rob had loaded the boxes in the van and brought them back to his parents’ home. Can’t junk them, can’t trade them. We weeded out the broken ones for recycling, left two boxes in the alley as giveaways (they were all gone by 5 p.m.) and my mother-in law and I split the rest.

The photos illustrate the garden my mother-in-law, Velma Tucker, created with her twist and 42’s. Her insulator garden sparkles among the petrified wood, collected rocks and a few blossoms. Added to the string of bells suspended from a retired clothes line pole, her insulator garden is the conversation piece of the neighborhood weed free and no dusting!