Sweaters. A few inches of snow and the entire city casts off its suits and starts showing up at work in sweaters. Leading this downward sartorial spiral was Mayor Giuliani, who appeared in a series of self-promoting news conferences, in order to be seen to be "managing the crisis" and making the trains run on time, just like his wartime predecessor. Rather than wearing a brown shirt, he chose to depict himself as a man of the people by donning the sweater, aped by the group of toady commissioners who always stand meekly behind him on the dais, summoned forward in turn to respond to only to those questions which do not make the boss look good. Of course, in danger of being overshadowed by his Sanitation Commissioner, Rudy put the suit back on again in later appearances, lest we be in any doubt who is the leader and who is the grunt. What is the most extraordinary in all this is that the TV newscasters and interviewers were themselves competing to look the scruffiest on camera, as if the combined weight of their status and staff could not prevent their Armani suits from becoming soiled on the journey between the doorman and the limo. All highly bizarre, and a rare, illuminating glimpse into the American class system.
Then there are the dog turds. Big ones, small ones, straight ones, multi-layered, multi-colored curly ones. Surprisingly, they do not blend into the landscape in a snowdrift, very few of them being white of hue. They lie steaming and glistening on the snow, as if, like the alternate-side parking rules, the law against letting your dog shit where it pleases had been repealed as part of the state of emergency. This is not a monsoon; they do not wash away. They linger, they fester, they get on one's shoes and end up in one's apartment. One drops a cookie on one's apartment floor; one picks up said cookie and puts it in one's mouth. You get the picture. What people can be thinking of, apart from perhaps giving vent to usually-repressed anarchistic tendencies, I cannot attempt to speculate.
All of this is most peculiar, but, of course, nowhere near as peculiar as the behavior of the New York City Hash House Harriers, approximately twenty of whom appeared on time at the Guggenheim Museum last Sunday at the height of the blizzard to perform the weekly ritual. Speaking personally, I had left the apartment on a purely journalistic mission, with a shower of invective from the better half ringing in my ears ("insane" was one of the milder epithets), not for a second expecting anybody to show up. The fact that the Hot Line had already been set at 2:45 p.m. by the ever-helpful Hare Basil indicated that even he had given up and was directing people straight to the pub. But I went to the start anyway, and was astonished to see the group standing around in the storm as if nothing unusual were happening, receiving their instructions from the Hare. A look of mass irritation crossed people's faces when it was announced that the trail "might be a little difficult to follow in parts", combined with mass horror that he announced upfront the On-In location, an unprecedentedly wimpish action. So, with a vague idea of where we were going, we embarked on our adventure in a northerly direction.
It very rapidly became clear that I was not going to get far, since the surface was of a consistency approaching a mixture of spaghetti and treacle, and the only sensible people were on skis. Finding myself at the back of the pack in the company of Alice, thus proving that the weather does not affect some things, I persuaded her after a fraught half-mile that we were on to a losing proposition, and that we should take advantage of the Hare's blessing and head straight for the East Side. This we more or less did, give or take a couple of detours in search of some long-demolished buildings where she had spent her early education years, and arrived in the Australia Bar with little further ado. Having fantasized about a wood-paneled emporium with a roaring log fire and mugs of hot grog where we could all huddle together for warmth while sitting out the blizzard, I could not have been more disappointed if we had ended up in a branch of McDonald's; a place without any atmosphere whatsoever is a place without any atmosphere whatsoever in a blizzard. The room was dominated by an enormous television set alternating between the Weather Channel and a bunch of guys in hard hats running into each other, and the only virtue to the place was that it was large and empty.
Still, more than average fun was had observing the arrival of the rest of the pack. Hardy and Guiley had arrived just before me, and the former looked genuinely nonplused by the fact that his head was completely covered in recalcitrant ice, the suggestion that he might have been better off wearing a hat of some kind being greeted with genuine interest, as if he had never heard of the concept. By the time his head had finally melted, Steve Brett and Geoff Baldwin showed up, having been delayed by a Good Samaritan effort to help some fellow dig out his car. All well and good, but it is worth pointing out that, of the more than 100 deaths that occurred as a result of the storm, the vast majority were from heart attacks, of people exerting themselves excessively for their age and condition. Steve, you really should be more careful. Quite a large time gap then elapsed before the final arrivals, including Roy, Croft and young Peter, whose tardiness was caused, I believe, by his judging the trail inadequately marked and having gone back to add pack marks. These sad individuals, who refused to be deterred from the business of running the trail, spent some time in earnest discussion with the Hare about the exact nuances of the false trails and how certain key markings had gotten covered in snow. My God, I think we may have a case for adding Basil to the list of those banned for life from setting a trail, since he did such a poor job. May I recommend setting the trail in dog shit next time?
Once everybody was safely in, the normal procedures prevailed, including the perennial debate between so-called decent beer and so-called bad beer, my position on this great schism being well documented. No debate, however, about the pizza, which was of a gourmet nature never seen before in my lifetime - there may even have been some arugula in there somewhere. A new face, a pleasant lady named Allison (despite the mutant spelling of her name), turned out to be an old face, known to several of the true veterans. Just like Spike the week before, she indicated future regular intent. She duly submitted to a Down-Down, along with Joint Master Stiefvater, another first in my experience, and, of course, the Hare, who, with as much seriousness as this cynic can muster, has to be congratulated on doing an extraordinary job on his Redemption Run in these impossible conditions. Some sort of award ought to be forthcoming in May.