NYCH3 August 16, 2000

Hares: Michael Bahamonde & Melanie Ashmore

On-In: The Village Idiot

Scribe: Heather Malloy

Before I get started, I was wondering if anyone noticed anything odd about the Receding HareLine above. No? You didn’t notice that it is pretty much USELESS? Not one metro area hare bothered to submit his or her info in advance. What a disgrace. Hares, please submit your start locations ASAP. Thank you…..and on with the writeup.

It was a beautiful night for a hash. Clear, sunny, and warm, but not hot. In general, perfect weather for attracting a record number of visitors, virgins, and other sundry fair-weather hashers. A large crowd gathered at the Washington Square arch, apparently oblivious to the implications of having to run a trail set by Mike and Melanie. One such out-of-it participant (who is neither new, nor a fair-weather hasher) did a whole lot of speedwork the night before, thinking that it would be me setting the trail. Not a good night to be muscle impaired, as Melanie is known for incredibly long trails with very few twists and turns, unless you count abrupt detours into the park after about seven miles of solid running; and Mike is famed for trails like the “reverse snail-shell” that made a right every block for about 350 turns total, and was most cruelly set the day after the Brooklyn Half Marathon. Needless to say, everyone who had run either of his or her trails in the past did some extra stretching before we set off to the east.

As soon as we got to the first check in Cooper Square/Astor Place, I immediately thought, “Ah ha! It will be Union Square, Stuyvesant Square, Rutherford Square, Madison Square.” And in fact it was, but with a doozy of a twist. After Cooper, the trail looped back on itself to Union Square, but surprisingly, no check. Instead, we went up to a check on Madison Square, and right back down to Union Square. At this juncture, the pack was thoroughly shattered by some hashers finding trail to the south, and back to Wash Square, a few directly west to the on-in, and a whole bunch more finding true trail due east to the next check at Rutherford Square. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t happened earlier, given the number of times that the trail passed within a block of itself. We headed straight back through Gramercy Park to (duh) Union Square, and then I lost Beth, who was the last hasher I saw until finding the on-in at the Village Idiot. A rumor was going around that another loop did indeed reach Stuyvesant Square, but I was lucky enough to get lost in the right direction. In all, a lovely five-mile trail, which probably looked like a daisy surrounding Union Square if viewed from the top of the nearest skyscraper.

The Idiot was the same as the last time we visited, almost as though it had been occupying a mysterious eddy in the space-time continuum. Same drunks, same music, same stench. One of these drunks was well known to Rick, who immediately warned everyone not to make eye contact, but it was too late for a number of unfortunates. Once he’d made a connection, he danced around making what looked like the hand gestures to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” A rumor started circulating that he was, in fact, one of the long lost original founders of the Malaysian Hash gone mad from malaria. True to form, a certain Harriette commandeered the ladies’ toilet as soon as we arrived to perform her ablutions and freshen her makeup, only to have a number of non-Hash bar patrons begin pounding on the door after about ½ hour. Also true to form was poor Melanie hustling for pitchers and apologizing to the thirsty and grumbling masses while Mike B chatted away in another corner.

Pizza arrived and was chowed down speedily, and for once, no fights broke out over the broccoli pies. While the last crusts were being chewed, Peter and Roy managed to gather everyone in a corner for down-downs, though the bartenders refused to lower the volume on the music. First off, Mike and Melanie drank for setting a trail that got us in before 5 a.m. the next day. Then, visitors from Israel and Tokyo (in a lovely kimono), plus some other guy, stepped up. A troop of virgins came forward, and I can’t remember their names, but they all seemed to end in “y” or “ie”. Sleepy, Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy, Gropey, Greedy, and Daisy: welcome! A Barry Cohen award went to Daisy #2 for running into a car, but she also turned out to be the rarest of hashers, the non-drinker, so she was summarily shoved out of the circle. Studgate got the rabbit ears for accidentally (yeah, right) cheating. Finally, Sucks After Dark got AOTW for his speculative pack marks, wherein he arrives at a check, divines a direction by barometric pressure or something, puts down a mark with a question mark, and scampers off.

Though the circle broke up quickly, the evening did not by any stretch of the imagination. A number of old farts stayed out way past their ten o’clock curfews, and a sizable pack hung around until well after midnight, with Crazy Bob and Lipstick Leslie winding up at a diner at around 6:30 the next morning. On-Out.