Brooklyn Hash House Harriers

Labor Day Run

Date: September 5, 2000

Hare: Stephen Balinskas

Start: Eastern Parkway

On In: That park slope bar near the F train, with darts

Scribe: Stacie

A funny thing happened at the annual Labor Day hash. The pack was enthusiastic. I guess that’s what happens when new blood shows up after hearing that 99% of the regulars are out of the country. So, yes, the hashers were gleeful, shouting, “ON ON,” and “Oooh, there’s a mark!” with fervor. The second funny thing was that women actually showed up. Young, pretty, grad student type women from Michigan. Like the pied piper summoning mice, our hare lived up to his mismanagement Whore Meister role with a trail that lured women from Manhattan and other regions of the nation.

I arrived on time, for once, but saw no one resembling any hasher I’ve ever seen. Just as I had worked up the courage to touch the nearest payphone to call HASHNYC, I spotted a frazzled Stephen. I was very glad to see him as I’d received messages from our On Sec, apparently the only official mismanagement left in the U.S. but leaving imminently for vacation or to get married or who knows what, saying something about an incommunicado hare and despotic declarations of a random start. I had visions of no one showing up, the final proof of my complete lack of a life, and forgoing running to drink alone, scribbling a completely fictitious write up on bar napkins. Hell, for all that I could go clean under my refrigerator.

So, yes, I was very glad to see Stephen and his grocery sack of flour. And then suddenly we were surrounded a veritable multitude of stalwart virgins, visitors and Manhattannites who had braved sucky subways and devilish downpours. Steven nervously looked around, mumbling, “Is it time?” “Do you think the marks will survive the rain?” “The trail is a little urban, I hope that’s okay,” “Does anyone know how to set the hotline?” Meanwhile, Roman hasher Andy eagerly explained hashing conventions to the pretty newbies. “This is flour, this is arrow…”

The trail was the best kind: short, so as to not detract from the beer. The route had few turns, another of my favorite trail features, minimizing the need to bring my brain. Urban, as promised, the trail sported a single check, of the “All road lead to Rome” variety, except in our case, all roads led to beer. All else that happened on trail is a mystery to me, as Andy, a virgin Michiganer and I apparently found the long route to the on in. We ended at some bar near the F train whose name is scribbled a discarded scrap of paper.

DB2 graciously appeared at the bar in time for falafel and a stint as interim spiritual advisor— qualified, I suppose, by virtue of being British and a man—in which he promptly interrupted the grad students’ vigorous dart game, issued down downs to all virgins, visitors, Brooklyn insurgents, and, for good measure, regulars.

Nice hash, good food, new blood, but all in all, just not the same without the regulars.