Springtime arrives early in Washington States especially for those of us that live on the southeastern side of the Cascade Mountains. Typically by early April the daffodils are in full bloom. Along with all the flowers blooming it also Signals the beginning of a new garage and yard sale season. Realizing good bargains and items are commonly found at these types of sales prompted me to get up early one Saturday to see what I could find. In particular, I was looking for old barn siding to build a combination birdhouse and birdfeeder for the backyard. The wind from the previous winter had taken its toll on the existing one. 

As a general rule, I typically do not fare well at garage sales when it comes to finding things I'm looking for. Part of my problem may be that I seek the right items on the wrong days or I arrive too late and everything I was interested in has already been sold: I am though, "very good" at finding "treasures" for my friends. My favorite line at a yard sale is "sorry, we just sold all the insulators to a guy not more than five minutes ago." My wife and I were amazed he bought everyone of them!" Sound familiar? But is was a new season and I was raring to go.

After hitting all the advertised sales found in the paper and still in need of some old wood, I decided to head out of town. The morning was still young and the chores at home could easily wait until later or even the next weekend. After driving north for a period of time I happened to come across a poorly put together yard sign that read "LARGE SALE, TODAY ONLY." After pondering it for a moment, I decided to check it out. Pulling off the main road onto a gravel washboard like road I traveled nearly five miles before I reached the house where the sale was taking place. There were no other cars or people around. I was the only one there. It was kind of a spooky looking place that closely mimicked the house and property found in the movie Psycho. Looking through the trees and heavy brush, I could see some makeshift tables constructed of what appeared to be old barn siding and wooden planks. It looked like this would be a great place to get the wood I needed for my project. I parked the truck, got out and began looking over the merchandise that was for sale. I soon discovered that most of the items on display had been sitting there for a very long time. Realizing there was not much of anything, I was about to leave. As I looked up I saw an elderly woman making her way down the path towards me.

Some kinda "daffodil", Paul!

She seemed amazed that someone had actually stopped. After looking a little longer I asked if she had any wood for sale. She said no. I then asked if she had any insulators for sale. She said yes but they were locked up in the shed out back. It took us a while to reach the shed, as there were many obstacles in the yard we had to walk around. It was a very large shed and it was old. While I standing at the shed waiting for her to unlock the door, I happened to look down and there lying in the mud off to the side on its original insect riddled wooden pin was a signal type looking insulator. At first, I thought it was a MAYDWELL in a very deep straw color. It was so full of mud and laying in the water that I really could not tell for sure. As I bent over to pick it out of the mud puddle to wipe it off, I quickly realized that this was no MAYDWELL! Instead, it turned out to be a H.G.CO. CD 162 [070] in Yellow! I about fell over. As I continued to stand there and wipe the mud off, I heard the lady make a casual comment something like "yeah there's another one." The door was still not open and by now, I was ready to start pealing the siding off of the building to get inside. My mind was racing trying to visualize what treasures lay between me and the other side of that locked door. All I could think of was that this shed is SO LARGE! Could it be full of insulators? As the lock finally came off of the door and the door swung open, all my enthusiasm and excitement quickly turned to complete disbelief! There inside were thousands of precisely cut and stacked pieces of wood! The wood was packed in this shed so tightly that nothing else would fit. It was unreal! I'm sure it took her years and years to do this. As my eyes scanned the shed, I happened to catch site of an old shoebox. There inside the shoebox were the insulators she spoke of. There were some clear Hemingray 45s a couple of clear HEMINGRAY 42s and the broken upper half of an aqua CD 147. Now, just for a moment, try and picture yourself in my shoes. Here I am standing there with a killer H.G.CO. yellow signal dripping with mud in one hand and a cardboard box with some broken insulators and mouse droppings in the other hand. What would you do or say next? Well, after a few moments of silence I finally regained my composure, and worked out an agreement for the purchase of ALL the insulators which also included the cardboard box. She was very pleased as was I with the exception of one thing. I was unable to reach any kind of agreement monetary wise for the purchase of some wood to build my bird feeder. I guess there are just some things in this life that remain nonnegotiable.

Happy Collecting!

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