NYCH3 # 1070

NYCH3 #1070, September 22, 2004

HARES: John Haldi, Norma, Leo (sort of)

START:  

On In: Milk Bar on Ave A

Scribe: Mean Jean

With deepest apologies to Cat Stevens, I mean Yusuf Islam

Oh very young

Where will you lead us this time

You’re only hashing on this earth for a short while

And though your trail may toss and turn us now

You will vanish away like your chalk marks did

To that Big On In in the sky

And though you want us to run forever

You know we never will

(You know we never will )

And no hotline made the ending harder still

Oh very young

Where will you lead us this time

There’ll never be another chance to set a trail

And if you want the pack to find your marks

Will you not hide them behind bins and mail boxes

Will you mark corners and not mid-block

And though you want us to run forever

You know we never will

(You know we never will )

And lack of beer makes the pack meaner still

Oh very young

Where will you lead us this time

You’re only hashing on this earth for a short while

Oh very young

Where will you lead us this time

If the prospect of a Virgin Hare wasn’t scary enough, NYCH3 #1070 saw the advent of a new and even scarier spectre: the “Virgin” Virgin Hare Supervisor. To give John Haldi credit, he wasn’t even supposed to set this trail. Leo bailed at the last minute. Though why Leo, new to NYC but not new to hashing and I can only assume he’s set trail in DC before, needed a supervisor and a virgin supervisor at that… well let’s move on.

So John gets stuck holding the proverbial chalk whilst another large, late-summer pack assembles in the shadow of the Empire State Building. A condescending chalk talk (“if you all work together you’ll be able to solve the checks”) left veteran hashers with a bad taste in their mouths as we were sent north on Fifth Ave. Having strolled down Fifth from my office on 53^rd Street, I was already privy to a mark going east on 42^nd Street and as said hare had indicated a 5 mile trail, I quickly decided to take advantage of foreknowledge and took my pals Got Wood and Wet Connection along with me. We probably only bought ourselves a 3 minute advantage as the FRBs including Speedy Gary, Devo, and Dr Steve found us quickly while checking at Vanderbilt. True trail was discovered heading east and after a brief swing north and east again we were outside the UN and heading back south along First Ave. We swung west, we swung back east, we swung low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me…oh wait, I digress. Suffice to say a bunch of to- and fro-ing  as we head ever southward, stuck here and there as annoyingly hidden hash marks were constantly missed. There was every form of dodgy trail-marking from the classic hide-behind-the-garbage-can to everyone’s favorite: the mid-block cross-the-street mark. But we did manage our way downtown, through Madison Square Park and over east to a dastardly check in the more westward of those two parks that sandwich Second Ave at 16^th Street. HUA logically thought 19^th Hole and headed north when On On was called heading south. And into the East Village we went. Down to about 5^th Street and east into Thompkins where at another nasty check Steve wrongly called on on north along B only to lose trail around 9^th Street and have to head back. Deep, dark frustration fell over the weary pack, already out for more than an hour, especially when Karen declared that the Hotline still wasn’t set. Thankfully before too long true trail was discovered north on A and nirvana in the form of an On In mark, beer, water and just plain stopping running was discovered at the Milk Bar at 12^th Street.

Good things I will say about the trail: A good size pack did manage to stay together for most of the trail with FRBs like HUA and BJ Boy getting reeled back in by the nasty marks and indecipherable checks so that DFLs like myself were right in the mix most of the way. Even Smashmouth was only a few minutes behind the pack which generally checked in to the On In about an hour 5 minute to an hour 15 minutes out. Also, ideal weather made running 6 miles almost bearable (I said, almost). Now for the fun stuff: watching John Haldi insist he had followed the Hotline instructions to the “T” when all he really needed to do was follow them to the “1” which is what you must press the save the message. Discovering that Cock Star had mistaken my short cut tip to her about finding a mark on my way from the office  by heading all the way up to my office on 53^rd, then guessing west and completely losing the entire pack. Then there was Wet Connection who called the Hotline and ran to last week’s On In way the fuck on the west side of town.

Down downs commenced:

• The three stooges, I mean, hares
• John again for his Romper Room chalk talk
• Doh! John again for making Smashmouth stomp his feet in disgust
• Oh My! John again for hotlinus interuptus
• JJ for giving her last dollar to a homeless dude
• Cock Star for poorly navigating an easy short cut
• Denise for when Devo ran up behind her to give her a little shove and nearly slid off her sweaty back (but what was Devo doing behind a, gulp, girl?!?!) (It is rumored that at this moment she was officially named, “Slip n Slide” but pending confirmation, we’ll still call her Denise
• Fast American Dave for stealing books on trail from the Goodwill bin, books by the way, in German, which he doesn’t speak
• Tall new bald guy Dave for anger management issues as he kept hitting cars and busses as he crossed traffic
• AOTW to BJ Boy for answering a passer by’s query about why we were running by bending over and telling them to “Read my Ass” which said “Follow my Ass to the Beer”
• Finally, Smashmouth and new virgin guy for new shoes—but they didn’t have to drink out of them—DB2 being too venerable and new guy being too new! (“Why in my day…” they would have HAD to drink out of their shoes anyway!)

After-circle shenanigans included some chaise lounge hopping by Crazy Bob, the usual Stewa grope session, a couple of swipes by the Mastercard, sober September non-shenaningans from HUA, and me, well, I was just my well-behaved self!

 In the end, too much pizza arrived, hash cash ran out early, and many a lesson was learned by Oh Very Young John. But no matter, we all blamed Jumping Jack Gash for the whole thing anyway.

On out.