Hello everyone and here we are with the next part of our winter insulator collecting trip. As you may recall, poor dad had sunk in the snow right up to his chest and I was trying to dig him out.  That was not easy since we did not have a shovel with us.  After all, who needs a shovel to collect insulators?

So let’s get started with part 2…

Digging him out wasn’t going so good.  I grabbed his arm and tried pulling.  Succeeded in making dad yell, but didn’t get him out.  Bonehead, he said, you almost pulled my arm off.  Dad always exaggerated.  Finally cleared enough snow away that he could get out.  Except for one boot.  I pulled it out and gave it to dad.  He put it on, bonehead, you didn’t shake the snow out.  Thought he would do that.  Now he has a wet foot.  Good thing we brought extra socks, I said.  I got them out of his backpack.  You should have been wearing this instead of carrying it, you wouldn’t have sunk so far, I said.

Never mind, he said.  I tossed dad the socks but the wind from a second train caught them and off they flew!  Poor dad had already removed the wet sock so was sitting there with a bare foot in that cold wind.  The look on dad’s face as he yelled, my socks!  One landed not too far away so I was able to retrieve it fairly quickly, but the other one went flying over the train and disappeared completely.  Oh well, you only need one sock anyway, I said.  Dad just shook his head.  Finally the train was gone and off we went out to the insulators.  Dad was a bit nervous about walking on the ice.  He hit it with his axe.  Good and solid, which made him feel better.  Off to the next pole.  These cross arms are a bit loose, I said.  Dad chopped around them with the axe.  Up came one.  We got all the insulators on that one.

Next one.  Up it came, nice and easy.  I dropped it on the ice.  Splat!  It was wet of course.  Which splattered all over dad.  Not a drop on me.  You always manage to get wet, I said, even in winter.  Only when you are along, he said, as he wiped his face.  The water froze on his glasses quite quickly.  I can’t see, he said.  He took his glasses off.  And promptly dropped them on the ice.  They actually slid a few feet.  AAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!, he said.  I’ll get them, I said.  No, yelled dad.  He got them and sat down on part of the pole that was sticking out of the ice.  I think the pole moved, I said.  Ha,ha, said dad.  Then down it went.

The look on dad’s face!  Priceless.  Too bad we didn’t have a camera.  He fell backward.  The ice cracked.  Dad yelled.  Amazing how fast he moved.  For a rather big man he could move fast at times.  But, his arm went through the ice, however, that was all.  At least you didn’t get your feet wet this time, I said.  My one foot is already wet, now my arm is too, he said, and so are my mitts.  Good thing we brought extra mitts along.  Dad just looked at me.  Amazingly he didn’t lose his glasses that time.  But they were still covered with ice.  But we did get some nice insulators off that pole.

To be continued.

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.