Brooklyn Hash House Harriers
The Veteran’s Day Hash
November 12, 2001
Run # 235
Hares: Crofty & Ewa
Start: Clark Street on the 1,2
On-In: Sparky’s, on Court Street
Scribe: Stacie
It was Veteran’s Day, the biggest national non-holiday of the year. Since most of us are too old or too young or too lucky or too infirm to have fought in our own war, we just straggled into Brooklyn, after work, just like all the other every other Mondays. A normal hash day, which for nearly-former hashers like me, is exceptional.
I was the perfect amount late: the hare was already there, the pack was still there, and I didn’t have to seek out any cryptic chalk BH3. Crofty and Ewa turned us out into Brooklyn Heights where the promenade came to greet us after the first check. “No Towers,” we paused to whisper, peering down to downtown. We wound our way through the night through the carless streets our silence fed by the brownstone’s warm windows the quiet broken with a subdued “Are you?” “On on”. And then the moment was over: back in regular Brooklyn and its grit and shaggy. Street construction. A check over a freeway. Indigenous chalk arrows pointing into shrubbery. Construction. A little more construction. Probably we were in Park Slope–every Brooklyn trail needs its Park Slope. We started at a subway; I can say with confidence, we ran along the promenade, we did end at a bar. In between, we were somewhere in Brooklyn, real Brooklyn, trotting pack mark to pack mark.
Soon, very soon, to our hare’s chagrin, the pack arrived at Sparky’s. That was good news to me, not too many miles, not far to my favorite bad train, not too many dogs (not counting the people). Our hare greeted us warmly: “That’s only 35 minutes! Get back out there and run it again.” You see, our hare was squeezing in a little work while the pack sweated on trail. Not only had our hare been talking work talk on his cell phone (as if having to work on a pseudo holiday wasn’t enough), but his lovely cohare Ewa was left to do all the heavy lifting herself, and then fend off the ferocious bar crowd. The hare’s response to the roar of complaints: “Can’t you see I’m working? Go tell the barman you need beer.”
Alice came in after a long time. She must have found a sale. Crofty considered sweeping but was too busy working. The usual pack, all the best regulars, talked the usual talk of aches, pains, pack marks, colonialism, and ground zero, and a history lesson (which state was the 48th? Arizona, answer courtesy of Jerry, via the ghost of JFK and a senator from the Civil War). Downdowns were awarded for the usual crimes, which I fail to remember. Crofty did not get a downdown for nearly going on vacation, but should have, except he was too busy drinking for his hash work. And Ewa should have gotten a downdown but didn’t for drinking all of the Stella before the pack got to the bar. And Cree should have gotten a downdown but didn’t for always leaving early, but he’d already left (is Monday his one night of sobriety or the one night he gets laid?) And globetrotters Roy and Geof should have gotten downdowns for managing to be in town, but didn’t. And DB2 should have gotten one for leaving Daisy at home when he got to be with the other dogs at Sparky’s. And Janet just because she was east of the East River.
Good crowd. Good trail. Excellent pack marks. Thanks, who ever laid them. On out.