Dear Pencil-Pals, It was with great anticipation that we all headed out to Forest Hills Queens for the latest installment of the G2FMH3. After all, wasn’t it just a couple of weeks ago that we received advanced e-mail notice from Mike Hoffman that something great this way was coming? It said:
Hmm … must have got my formatting options set up improperly. To bad, the mail was about 20 megabytes and took ½ hour to download, it must have been something wonderful. Thankfully web-master Keith Kanaga himself later jumped to the rescue and resent the mail. Aha! This time surely it would be a multi-media extravaganza with moving Java images and virtual reality dohickeys (where did I put my 3-D glasses?) … it said:
Rats! Well, there’s nothing for it then but to actually turn up and see for myself. Having checked my subway maps and Farmer’s Almanac I found out first where Queens was, and then Forest Hills. Yes, I was born and raised in Queens, but ask Jimmy, my knowledge of Manhattan / Queensian public transportation is tainted by the fact that I’ve only ever used it while under the influence. (The #7 at 4am, ah, "The Orient Express", with Sleeper Car!)
Getting out of the subway station I walked around in the cold rain for a few seconds until I was warmly greeted by Ariane and Me-Ho (yes, I know its spelt Miho, but not many people are born with a hash name) and that made me feel popular and welcome, until I realized that the cold rain had so damaged their brains by then that they were greeting everybody coming out of the station: "Ah, strange man! Hello!!! Hello!!!" Standing around in various stages of cold despondency (thank god for spell checkers) were the other usual suspects: Geoff, Roy, Ewa, Alice, the Hares, and some visitors and virgins. Seth was already making apologies for the weather probably having washed away the entire trail after he set it. There’s nothing worse than spending many hours carefully constructing a well thought out trail only to have the rain wash it all away. Well, yes there is. RUNNING washed out trails is a bit worse.
We were instructed that there were three checks, all in front of Russian signs, three and you’re on, falses marked etc, and we were sent on our merry way and immediately got lost. At this point it was raining steadily and was quite cold for spring and I was going through my mental list of places I’d rather be. Roy and Geoff were running up and down all kinds of blocks while the rest of us plunked along at the standard head-down misery-pace. Alice, walking with a cane behind us explaining ACL injuries to passerbys, was still on trail and pointed the way and we continued and got lost again. About six blocks from the start we searched for about 15 minutes for the trail until finally, on some message from heaven, we all ran to the highway, made a right, ran a ¼ mile, and were on trail again. (You need to be on these types of trails to understand why it seems a fine idea to run without a single mark for so long and think it’s OK). Anyway, a visiting hasher (I forgot his name, but it was something cool, so let’s say it was "Cum-Stained Sheets Man") had found what was left of an arrow – two inches of a smudged chalk-like / bird-shit like substance on the ground. Good enough! On-On!!! Tweet-tweet with the whistle!
At some point the hares had switched to flour. It was clear that Seth must have just flown in from Washington that afternoon, and boy were his arms tired, because it must have been painful to reach inside the flour bag and sprinkle more than two grams at any one time. At one point I was checking a potential flour splotch by doing the standard "run your finger through it" and I came up with a bloody finger and a piece of glass. "Nothing that some liquid anesthetic at the bar can’t fix," I thought, and continued. "Cum-Stained Sheets Man" found trail again and we ran through some indescribably gorgeous neighborhood scenery. I say that because I’m at two pages already and don’t feel like describing it. Let’s just say that it was the kind of neighborhood where your mother would be proud to visit you and your dad would be in heaven offering advice about the garden and storm proofing the windows. As usual, out of nowhere M.I.A. Rick and Bill materialized and ran right past us and were gone into the night.
The trail finally came to an end at a bar located right by Aldersgate and a wonderful bar it was. All sins are forgiven by good On-In locations. Seth and Rudi were there: "Did you find the checks", "No, not one", "Did you go through the park?", "Park, no, no park". "Not a single check?", "Nope, not one". Winds up we had completely shortcutted about 75% of the trail and this put Seth into such a catatonic shock that required us to get beers ourselves for the rest of the night [Advice to future hares: If your trail gets washed out, and your On-In location is just a block away from the start, sweep the trail. You’ll be glad you did!]. Apparently the trail was a theme run, something to do with Russia, or May Day, or something (does Russia still exist?) Since it was washed out all was for naught. Such are the vagaries of life. As there were no Full Moon officers in attendance Roy and Geoff took command and conducted down-downs. Two down-downs were given to both hares, a number of visitors and virgins got down-downs, Pierre got one for the sin of having used the bar himself for an On-In sometime in the past and a virgin came back up again for the sin of having worn his hat during his first down-down. We turned to our pizza and beer. Mmmm, good beer too.
There were some visiting hashers there, currently living in Long Island who hashed in Florida and were interested in setting up a Long Island Hash, to start with an inaugural "Amityville Horror House Run" with lots of shiggy and a BBQ. If you see a notice for this you should go as they look to be a good bunch of guys.
I was in a standard hashing mood whereby I could have easily spent the next two days standing around in the bar and bullshitting over good beer, but Rick and Bill needed to leave and I joined them (busy weekend and all that). Riding the train home with them I was able to reflect on the benefits of growing older: before, to get home, I would have rode the trains drunk from Manhattan to Queens. Now, I ride the trains drunk from Queens to Manhattan. Progress!
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