There was a time, not too long ago, when the forensic investigation department of the Metropolitan Toronto Police harbored not one, but two insulator collectors paired together in sixth floor offices at police headquarters in the heart of that city.                                                                                                                       

JOHN BADOWSKI Grimsby, Ontario  Born Oct. 16, 1958  Collecting Since: 1970 Primary Specialty: CD's John's collection numbers approximately 300 pieces, recently downsized from 800. It includes 226 different threaded and threadless designs.

Departmental assignments have since changed, but Det. Sgt. John Badowski and Constable Bruce Templeton continue to take great interest in rescuing insulators from the railway and telegraph lines now rapidly disappearing from the Canadian landscape. The opportunities provided by the current spate of abandonment and demolition of these lines are somewhat akin to early days of collecting in the U.S., and fortunately it didn't take too much arm-twisting to convince these good-natured collectors to share some of their stories.

John Badowski sunbathing on a balmy Ontario afternoon.

John Badowski's fascination with insulators began at age twelve while on a winter outing with his teacher and a few other students. The group was undertaking the exploration of a long abandoned Grand Trunk Western Railway (a U.S. subsidiary of the Canadian National Ry.) tunnel beneath the Welland Canal, a shipping bypass of Niagara Falls. One of John's fellow students noticed the sparkle of blue glass beneath the frozen ice they were traversing -- the tunnel is flooded and can only be accessed safely in the dead of winter. John was so impressed with the beauty of the object retrieved from its icy resting place -- a broken CD 143 specimen -- that he instantly became hooked on the insulator hobby. His enthusiasm quickly infected his cousin Tom Iannelli, and together they both began collecting furiously.

John's collecting continued until his enrollment at the University of Toronto, where college life relegated insulators to background status. After graduating with a BS in biochemistry, he went to work as a research chemist. John quickly grew bored with this new job, finding it "a dull way to make a living", (no offense intended to research chemists!) so he quit to join the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a decidedly less dull way to pass the time. In 1980, John became a member of the Metropolitan Toronto force, where he's been ever since.

He currently holds the rank of Detective in the Professional Standards unit, a position he described as similar to a Sergeant on television police shows. During his career on the force, he has worked in uniform, drugs, forensic identification, domestic response, taught at police college, and worked in intelligence. In 1995, John took a tour of duty in Zaire during the Rwandan civil war. Although he claims his visit was strictly for the purpose of obtaining new CD's, he won the distinguished Chief of Police award for his actions there. 

John specializes in CD's, and he notes that this specialty stems from his interest in the engineering problems faced by insulator manufacturers as they attempted to get their product to work a little better than their competitor's product.

Ironically, in all his years of collecting, Badowski has never attended an "insulator show" i.e., one that featured strictly insulators, but he has, since 1992, hosted a backyard get-together and barbeque. Starting with just seven collectors at its inception, it has grown to include 35 attendees last year. John's "fall classic" is known equally for its friendly atmosphere and... terrible weather! 

In addition to collecting insulators, John collects antique wire carpet beaters and glass fire grenades. He maintains an interest in glass target balls, but has yet to start a collection due to their expense.

John with CD 718 acquired during his 6th annual barbeque.

John and his wife Susan celebrated the arrival of their first child, a girl named Natasha Susan, born January 23, 1998. When they're not traveling the back roads of Ontario searching for antiques, the Badowski's enjoy live theatre. The combination of these two interests has led John to another endeavor, one in which his police career has aided enormously. Twice yearly, in the spring and fall, John develops his own fictional murder plot, rents a Bed and Breakfast inn, and invites friends to partake in a murder mystery weekend. After spending eight years in forensic investigation, John says writing "fun-filled murder mysteries is not a problem" and notes they have always been a source of great entertainment for the groups.