Now that I was up on this hill, after endangering my life in that climb, I began to look for those insulators that dad said would be up here in large numbers. Or something like that. First pole I found a few, nothing special. Second pole was very low so I was able to reach insulators on that bottom cross arm real easy, got a nice medium purple off that one. The next 3 poles were missing that bottom cross arm, so I looked off among the trees. There was a small drop off that went down about 6 feet (2 meters) and yep, there was several cross arms down there with insulators on them. Fantastic! I went down and started removing insulators and putting them on top of the hill. Then there was a couple cross arms that had nice insulators, including 2 dark purple, very nice indeed, but I couldn’t get those insulators off. Hmm, what to do? I decided to just put them up top and drag them down to where dad would be waiting, perhaps he could take them off.

So, up went the first cross arm and I heard this terrible loud screeching sound! I bet my eyes almost popped right out! Then I heard, ooooohhhh! Now that sounded familiar. I looked up and dad is sitting on the insulators rubbing his leg. “Wow, did you ever scare me with that loud screech”, I called up to dad. “Bonehead”, was all he said, still rubbing his leg. “Hey, how did you get up there anyway?”, I asked. “It’s nice and easy on that side”, said dad. Naturally. “See? I said we should walk around to the other side and I wouldn’t have had to risk my neck climbing that hill,” I reminded him. Dad just looked at me, he stopped rubbing his leg too. “By the way, how’s your ear?”, I asked. “It finally stopped bleeding, so did the cut on my hand and neck,” he replied. “You really do need to be more careful,” I said. “I need to be by myself”, he said. Not sure what he meant by that. “Why do you keep sitting there rubbing your leg?”, I asked him. “Because you threw that cross arm and it landed right against my knee”, he said. Dad always liked to exaggerate a bit, I slid that cross arm up there quite gently, since I didn’t want to break anything.

“I hope you didn’t break anything,” I added. “No, but I’ll probably get a big bruise from that,” he said. “I was talking about the insulators,” I said, “especially since I was being so careful.” “You were being careful?”, asked dad. “Thanks for noticing,” I said. “That was a question,” said dad. “No it wasn’t,” I said, “I was thanking you, that’s not a question.” Dad looked down and shook his head, then he said, “forget it.” Dad got up and tried moving his leg. “You should walk around a bit so it doesn’t get stiff,” I suggested. “We have to walk all the way back to the car,” he reminded me, “that should be enough walking.” Dad did manage to get those other insulators off and we got them all wrapped in newspaper for the journey back home.

Everything went smoothly until we came to that little stream. Dad didn’t figure he could jump across. I looked around a bit and found a real shallow spot and said he could easily walk across at that point. Dad looked and agreed. Wet feet was better than getting totally wet. I took the backpacks across then waited for dad. He was doing good, oops, almost fell, but he made it! Now the thick undergrowth. “You first”, said dad. Naturally. I forgot about those branches and let one fly. Whap! AAAAAA!!!! Oops. I look back. Dad was sitting on the ground looking for his glasses. “Lose your glasses?,” I asked. “Bonehead”, was all he said. He found them right away. “Wow, look at those red marks on your cheek”, I said, “they kind of match the scrape on the other side.” Dad just put his head down and said, “why me?” We made it back to the car without any more mishaps though dad’s knee was quite swollen. He had trouble walking for a few days. He even went to the doctor who told him he should be more careful. Mom agreed. Dad sighed.

Steve and Muffin.

©2020 Steve McLeod.