NYCH3 Run# 814 Hares:
Scott Gleason, Ed Lynch, Mickey Mouth, definitely NOT Bill Humnickey Start:
Union Square On-In: Coyote Ugly, 1st
Ave. & 11th Scribe: Dave Long
Bill having once again performed his invisible man disappearing act, it was left to “Bloody Bush” Gleason, Mickey Mouth and Ed “The Duck” Lynch to save the day and lay down a trail worthy of the name Bill. The medium sized pack (as in number of people, not body type) included a couple of notable returnees; Idaho Sue, hash femme fatale well known in NY hash circles for her extraordinary running, not to mention drinking, abilities, and A Man Called Cree, a relatively new arrival last summer and who had been AWOL from the hash for a while. He was wearing a bandage on one hand, which has probably caused him to suffer no end of appalling masturbation jokes for which yours truly was one of the guilty parties. Cree is a good sport though, and he would need to be on this hash, since as you’ll see it basically turned into The “Let’s Humiliate Cree” Show at the on-in. Notably few attendees from the previous night's Burns Night crowd though - spot the amateur Scotch drinkers! (or had the haggis caused a touch of Wallace's Revenge?).
The trail itself turned out to be a tour of the lower east side, so naturally I headed west and lost the pack immediately, never to be seen again. This would seem to suggest that maybe there weren’t enough checks or they weren’t hard enough, or both. I did however bump into John & Debbie (Bullacks!) bringing up the rear. A fine example to all those other guys who leave their girlfriends/wives in the dust at the start (you know who you are!) – or those ladies who leave their boyfriends in the dust (Lesley). A bit further on and we found Fluffy and Lipstick apparently lost at another check, that's their excuse anyway and they're sticking to it. On-on was east through Stuyvesant town and towards our old friend the East River Drive. It was quite a challenge negotiating the ice and slush on the footbridges without breaking one's neck, but most people managed it I think. In fact there was only one slippage incident on the whole trail involving, you guessed it, our old friend Cree, who came a cropper while shortcutting across some grass apparently and bruised his backside. "That's gotta hurt!" as they say in wrestling.
Meanwhile, the trail continued in an extremely tedious straight line along the riverside. This trail alternated between being straight as a die (the hand of Mickey Mouth?) and then having more loops in it than a can of spaghetti rings, all of which I managed to run, much to John's amusement. Apparently there was some mass trampling of old ladies going on at the front of the pack, especially by Junior, which according to Roy caused one exasperated cry of "yuppie twits!" from a victim hit from the back for about the fifteenth time. Come on, we've hit plenty of old ladies on the hash before but how many of them have used the word "twit"? Who apart from Roy uses that word? A model of politeness is our Roy, unlike certain committee members I can think of…
Cree takes the plunge(r)…
And so on-in to Coyote Ugly, scene of many previous on-ins and a near-fatal dancing accident involving It's Pat and some drunk English guy. (By the way, January 16th 1998 - hare Bill Humnicky, start Union Square, on-in Coyote Ugly - spot a trend here? Thanks to Scott for being a sad bastard and still having a writeup from 1998 in his possession). As usual there was a beer scare early on, as one by one the beers ran dry and we were left with the prospect of drinking bottled Bud the whole night. Fortunately this was rectified and soon pitchers of Saranac were being passed around. Continuing the streak of curious pizzas, we were treated to olive (?) and something with ground beef and peas on top. Approach with caution.
We have never traditionally been a hash for gimmicks, but this is destined to change after some drunken, er I mean rational, level-headed decisions taken by the mis-management at a recent pow-wow. So it was that Idaho Sue ended up wearing rabbit ears for the rest of the night for being the first one to the on-in, thanks to Cree holding the door open for her. They suit you, Sue. Cree's reward for this gentlemanly act was (a tad harshly one feels) the inaugural Asshole of the Week award, although he was guilty of some genuine high crimes like not calling on at checks. I had been slightly concerned for Trotskyo's sanity earlier when he had walked into the men's room and started rinsing the dust off a NYPD approved plunger, but now the reason became clear. Cree was duly made to chug from said plunger, which he actually enjoyed so much that he was spotted drinking out of it at various times later on. It just wasn't his night, as he was also spotted wearing new shoes. Off they came and were christened in the usual way. The barman then got in on the act by pouring whisky straight down Cree's throat Roman orgy style.
Cree takes off…
Not surprisingly our AOTW was looking a bit the worse for wear very quickly, and disappeared suddenly, presumably remembering that 8:00am meeting he was due to attend on Monday morning. Half the crowd meanwhile stared agog at the football game while the rest did our on-in-ish thing. Good job BB, MM & ETD. Bill would be proud. Feel better, Cree.
on out.