A few years ago we were driving down through eastern Poland to the High Tatras of Czechoslovakia. Walking through a village we saw unused insulators well up on the side of an old railroad station, now a union hall. My question, "Can't we do something about those?" started my linguistic wife on a frustrating exercise trying to find someone who could speak one of her languages. There were many smiles but no comprehension. By hand signals a man indicated that he was going somewhere and shortly came back with a man who could speak German. Glory be!

Many words later with lots of laughter and interpretations to the group and to me in English it was announced that the "crazy" American would remove the old insulators. But how do we get up there? They were within reach of a heavily barred window on the second floor. Fortunately, I was a bit skinnier then and it was just possible to crawl under the bars and up on the outside of the grid. By reaching upward hard I could get my hand on the nearest one. My wrist really ached by the time the horse hair packed pin let go. When it came off there was a roar and I realized a large group of thirty or so had assembled below. They were pointing and laughing and enjoying it immensely.

As I started down, a loud call told me I must get the other one which I finally did even though it was another foot away. Only the cheering audience could have made me stretch those extra inches. They examined the insulators endlessly asking many whys and whats, questions most of which probably didn't get very good answers but my Inge and the German speaking friend sure worked hard!

That was 1977 and my two beauties have been the "crown jewels" of my collection. They rested in peace until this year when Carol McDougald and Marilyn Albers did some stimulating so that they and their counterparts are about to be classified. They are similar to a U-2074.