Football. Parsing the word itself would lead the uninitiated to believe that football is a game in which one does something akin to interaction between a ball, and a foot. Naturally, American football involves nothing of the sort. Just as soon as we start using the metric system, or switch to the same wireless telephony standard as the rest of the world, or stop thinking of ketchup as a vegetable, we'll call football by a more appropriate name, like Lunkball. Or something. As opaque as American football is to the rest of the world, it is at least as opaque to any number of actual Americans. I've copied Christine's reason for not doing the writeup below:

I don't know the first thing about football. As often as people have tried to teach me (co-scribe included), I just don't get it. How can you go from a third down back to a first? And why would a team choose to kick for two points rather than go for the seven-point touch down? Don't try to explain. The truth is that I really don't care and as a result, I tend to treat this "national holiday" more as an excuse to eat whatever I want and drink as much as I please. Not that this behavior is very different from my normal activities, but every year for the past three years, I've joined up with those kindred spirits in the hash to throw a run into the mix that will ultimately end up in the sprawling digs of Trish Hoffman, complete with upscale microbrews, homemade chili and five small screen tvs - in hopes of learning something about the game - even if by osmosis.

Despite belligerent ignorance on the football front, Christine did bail me out and write up the trail:
Ed Lynch and Fireman Bob were put to the task to set the trail this past Sunday while the rest of the hashers were making last minute calls to their bookies. Our run began at 116th Street and Broadway, just in front of Columbia - a University that even I know has perhaps the worst football record in college history. Would this be an omen for the run or for the Super Bowl's outcome?? Hmmmm.

The trail was nothing less than excellent. I know I'm being a softy, but this was a great trail! We ran through Riverside Park, then over to Morningside Park, where Ed and Bob were somehow able to keep us from having to run up too many hills. Then, we ran down to Central Park, where the only real thing of note was my view of a truly scary visitor, The Molester, peeing against a tree - rather indiscreetly, I might add. Then it was out of Central Park and over to Riverside Drive Park and south to Trish's. Throughout the trail, checks were solvable and did their job in bringing up the rear. This meant that I actually brought up the rear and found myself trying to solve checks with Marie Wickham, Dave Long, Cree and other FRBs.

Peter didn't take notes, and I didn't have a pen, so I can't vouch for accuracy on down-downs. Ed got one for finding a bagel on the ground, eating it, then scraping it on the sidewalk. Bob got one for tattling on his co-hare. We had a few visitors, two of whom engaged in that most charming of out-of-towner behavior, complaining about New York. Another one was Molester from Silicon Valley, who got a down down for whipping it out in the park. He responded to the charge by massaging himself, then mooning everyone. Such lewd behavior seemed odd for someone from a relatively conservative hash, until he revealed that his home hash is actually Houston. The Barbados hashers did a group down-down for avoiding Cree's abomination, and Dave Long got the rabbit ears.

Once down-downs were out of the way, we were able to get down to touchdowns, ha ha. Peter bullied everyone into buying boxes, everyone rejoiced at the $10 price tag for the all you can eat feast, at least ten people were taken by surprise by the curried chili.

I'm going to chalk that $10 price tag up to irrational exuberance. Maybe everyone anticipated a windfall of free-flowing hash cash supplements after a Giants victory, as we ran out of beer before the game ended. Despite this potentially festivity-ending speed bump, no one really said anything. We were all too depressed by the Giants' virtual failure to show up and play to do any celebrating. It seemed like every pass they managed to complete was an interception, and the vaunted Giants offensive was crushed by the Ravens on every play. One spectacular seventy-yard dash to the endzone from a kickoff return was the only vaguely inspiring play. In fact, the Ravens were more inspired by it than anyone, imitating the exact play nicely on the very next play. And it all went downhill from there.

Except for a few Survivor fans, we all moped our ways out as soon as the game ended, with hopes for a near-term Canyon of Heroes parade left in the hands (and sticks) of the Knicks and Rangers. On out.