Hemi 42, NETT 112, WT 154. It was my older brother Dan who started collecting insulators back in the late 1960s. My uncle had taken us on a couple bottle digs, and that left an impression. Dan would study things, trains in particular, knew an amazing amount of info on them. He'd check out bottle magazines and noticed a new hobby that would occasionally be mentioned in those bottle magazines. A hoby that brought together two great things! Trains and Glass! He was off! We lived in Sudbury MA, near a Central Mass Boston and Maine line. Dan would grab a backpack and a canteen and head out. He was meticulous. If an insulator had a flea bite, it stayed where it was. His mission was to obtain only the most perfect of specimens. He had a few dozen by the time my mom made him take me with him one day, probably to get me out of her hair. I was 5 or 6, I collected seashells, and stuffed animals. I remember it was hot and dusty, and Dan showed me how he'd measure out 40 paces and start kicking around the ground kind of stomping, looking to feel a hump. When he found a bump in the ground, he'd carefully dig around, and Voilá! -a dirty Insulator! I thought that was pretty cool, and he was pretty smart to figure that out, but I was 6 and insulators were heavy, and it was a long way home. I'd quite frankly preffer swishing a brach in the stinky brook while humming my new favorite song "Mahna Mahna" by the muppets. I'd find a nice insulator and 'put it in a safe place where I'd remember to come back for it'. Needless to say, I didn't go back for it. I eventually figured that I didn't need to carry them back, because Dan would, and if I found myself in need of an insulator, Dan had plenty. Besides, I had my seashells and stuffed animals to worry about. Maybe a year later: Joe, my oldest brother was with us out on the tracks by the trestle and he says "Check this out!" He's holding a Hemingray 42. He winds up, kind of underhand and tosses the insulator way up in the air, over Hop brook while giving it a spin that keeps it upright. A motion that was a cross between frisbee and horse shoes. Just as it reaches its peak he says "Listen!" We all went silent. Just after the insulator hit the water there was a distinct "COOK" sound. He said that was the sound of the top of the insulator breaking off from the pressure as it hit the water. We. thought. that. was. AWESOME! I can tell you that many more attempts at recreating that awesome sound were made off the trestle over Hop brook. While I did not have the strength required attain the hight needed for this new trick to work, I kept trying, and so did 'the gang'.

The tracks are still there, the trestle too, but trees were planted between the ties long ago and a forest now grows where the trains once rambled. Nothing makes you feel older than seeing a forrested train track you once haunted. If one were to poke around the stinky polluted water near that trestle today, I guarantee insulators are there. Some -beheaded! (Note: it's a 'conservation' area)

Humorous side note: Dan was so into getting 'perfect' insulators, that he would avoid 'junkers'. Many that were left behind back then had amber swirls or stuff in them.

Just before we moved to Maine, he came home with PURPLE Whital Tatums! And a NETT 112 I was in awe! PURPLE!

None the less, it was some 40 years later that I started collecting insulators.