HOT SUMMER DAY -- Hi, I'm the Pollock, or at least that's what they tell me. I gave Hay You (alias Yay Hu) a call today to finalize the plans for our trip. He seemed pretty enthusiastic about it all. Said he was gettin' house on wheels ready for the trip. All was well except the temperature gauge wasn't working. I told him we didn't need the gauge anyway because it was gonna be hot travelin' whether it worked or not. Temps had been in the 90's and 100's for a week or so already, all the way from San Diego to Seattle, so it looked like hot travelin' ahead. Poor ol' Chico, our third partner in crime, had come down with several ailments and didn't think he could make the trip with us. How on earth could he come down with pneumonia in the middle of the summer in California? We sure will miss him as he seems to have the best ability when it comes to findin' glass. While talkin with Yay Hu, we discussed our destination a little, and I told him that I had a real strong feeling about findin a nice Cal. Electric. l'm sure we're gonna do all right with the Cal's on this trip. There is one other green critter I'd like to find, but that's only dreamin'.

DEPARTURE DAY - My "little boy", Tiny, woke me up at 8:35 am. Seemed like an awful short nite. Left home at 9 a.m. Drove on out to Yay Hu's. Got to his place at 11:00 and spent some time yacking about insulators, our huntin' trip, and other trivial goings on.

DEPARTURE DAY #2 - Up at 6:40 a.m. On the road at 8 a.m. The terrain in the country we are traveling thru changes rapidly. We have gone thru some pretty desolate areas. Yay Hu makes the comment: "Charlie Allmon don't come here -- it's a long ways between trees". Well whatever that all means!? Traveling wasn't too hot as it cooled down a little.

ARRIVAL - We finally got to our destination. We spent a couple of hours packing our gear and getting everything set. It was best to get a good night's sleep, so we decided to wait until morning to head out to the huntin' grounds. The next day saw some matters taken care of early in the a.m. We "headed for the hills" by 11 a.m. or so. Started working the line a couple hours later. We didn't have too much success, but the stuff has got to he here! After a couple days of some serious hunting I was raking away and out of the ground came a piece of a pretty, medium green EC&M. 

Fig. 1. The first of two upside-down embossed  found earlier this year.

Fig. 2. The "Big Bubble" -- The color is a beautiful medium green with fine olive-amber streaking. A base fragment for a cobalt blue Insulator (EC&M or Cal. Electric) was also found at the same site.

It was about half of the dome, and look at that, the embossing is upside down! Wow! A once in a life time find, right? As far as I knew there were 3 or 4 of these found before, but they were a much deeper color, so this would really have been something else if it was all there. The next couple of hours involved some pretty serious scratchin for more pieces while Yay Hu checked out the next span. Whatever animal had broken the must have eaten the remainder for lunch because no more pieces were to be found. I wandered on up to see how Yay Hu was doing -- no success there. So I went to the next pole in the other direction and did some serious digging. Whatever animal had been to the location must have been here too, because all it left here was one piece of an aqua EC&M. There wasn't quite enough of it to tell if it was an upside down or not.

With the fresh on our minds, it was easy to hope for a whole one. But really, what are the chances of another one? I'd still be happy with a nice aqua Cal. We decided to check out an area further up the line, so we packed all the gear and headed on up. Finding the line wasn't real easy at first, but we did eventually locate it again and looked for a couple of hours that evening. Next morning was a little chilly for awhile, but our raking soon warmed us up. There wasn't a whole lot of hardware to be found, but we did locate a large fallen tree with a scar in it about the right distance up from the base. l put the metal detector on it and sure enough there were a couple of nails embedded away down under a couple inches of growth. It was hopeless to attempt to cut into the tree with what tools we had, and I seriously doubted there was any glass embedded in there anyway.

Fig. 3. After finding the remains of a red painted EC&M bracket, some excited digging produced this dark aqua "tin mould" EC&M.

A couple of spans down, there was another large downed tree with two old cut nails from an old bracket about 15 feet from the tree's base. Detecting around revealed a couple old tie wires, so maybe we were in business. After an hour or so of serious work, we had no glass, so we decided to check the spot between the two trees. We found some ties and nails and once again set to work. There were more roots and rocks at this place so it made for hard diggin. I started at the far end of the site, while Yay Hu worked from the other end towards me. After an hour or so of flyin at it, things weren't looking the best, when all of a sudden out of the ground came flying a big green chunk of glass. It landed at least three feet from where it had rested for several decades. My chopping away so vigorously could have easily smashed it. But it hadn't. And what was this critter? Well, one look at that rounded base and I knew what I had. Oh, it was an EC&M all right. I didn't even have to look at the embossing to know what type either. A real, live, green . And it was in great shape too. I'm sure my loud singing could be heard all the way to San Francisco where the critter was born, and the vibrations from my dance with the in hand probably was responsible for the quake down in Mexico City. We quickly took some photos and headed on up to the next spot past the downed tree we had looked at an hour or so earlier. There stood another big tree and ole Yay Hu started looking around. In no time he scratched up a piece of an aqua Cal. Electric. The next span revealed no glass and it was time to call it a day, and we headed for "The Big City".

We decided to take a different route in the next time. It took us a long time to get back on track. We couldn't find the line. l knew we weren't too far off and that it had to be fairly close. So I left Yay Hu and headed out on my own into the unknown without any of the heavy gear. Sure enough, after some wandering around I came onto where it went through. I went back and got Yay Hu and we packed on in. The first day didn't reveal much of anything. The next day out we were finding traces of the line here and there and doing some serious digging. Yay Hu was working one spot and I went on up to the next one. There must have been a rebuild/replacement at this one as there was an extra tie wire or two and some extra nails. There was an awfully big decomposed tree laying there, with some of the hardware found at its base. I started to rake a lot more cautiously and slower than I had been doing a couple days earlier. I was fortunate not to break the last one, so I wasn't about to take any chances. The area on this site was pretty large and looked like it might take a couple of hours or more to work it over. The pine needles made for easy scratchin. Scratch, scratch, scratch, and after seven or eight like them, them laid this pretty green jewel only about one-third exposed. There wasn't even any fun of guessing what it was. There was that obvious rounded base staring up at me. I carefully pulled it from under the matted pine needles and there was the nice upside down embossing looking up at me. And a giant bubble in the skirt added to its beauty. So I carefully put it back in place and left it just like I found it so Yay Hu could have a look. I walked on up to the span where he was working and asked him what he had found. Then I explained to him how it was a good thing he was a good friend because I had found something for him, and we headed on back for a look. We took a bunch of pictures and in pulling it out, it became obvious it was very, very near mint. Look at that big bubble in the skirt! Wow, now we've got one apiecel I decided to keep on rakin the area while Yay Hu went back to his spot. Something must have gotten broken here with the extra tie or two. Sure enough, after a lot of work, up came a small piece of the base of another jewel. And look at that -- it's cobalt blue! We sure have got a line here! The next couple of days we really went over the area. Them wasn't a whole lot more to be found. Then we were digging another site a half mile away or so and we ran into part of a decomposed side bracket that had some of the old red paint on it. Visions of EC&M or came to mind. Then out of the ground came an insulator. Hum! Yes, it was born in San Francisco too. What do you think? We had located four EC&M's so far and of the two whole ones, both were upside down embossed. Of the other two, only one could be identified positively, and it was also an upside down. So what was this critter that had it's base chewed off, but was still three-fourths there? Well, my theory of an exclusive upside down EC&M section of line went out the door because this was a tin mold variant with "sober" embossing. Well, maybe they used a crate of each. The next span up looked like it might be a bit of a challenge because of the growth at its location. So we cleared off what we could and ran the detectors around. My detector beeped something up and when I looked down, there was this aqua Cal. standing on its head. Yes, it was standing there with its base straight up. For a second I thought the metal detector had converted to a glass detector, and then I saw the wire still on it. What a treat to find a Cal. with the tie still on it.

Fig. 4. This Cal. Electric, with original tie wire still attached, was found in an upside-down position on the "Upside-down Line."

My theory was that it was standing on its head trying to find its cousin who has to stand on his head for everyone to read his name properly. So this winter I'm going to practice standing on my head so that next spring I can hop on over to the line and make an attempt at walking upside down on my hands in search of some more . Of course we turned the huntin grounds "upside down" in search of more glass, but maybe next time if I stand on my heed, there might be a slim chance of locating at least one more hidden jewel that we overlooked the first couple of times over the area. Don't ya wish they could all be "CALIFORNIA GIRLS" ?

Fig. 5. Three of the "jewels" recovered gather for a San Francisco family reunion.