NYCH3 Run #841

July 19, 2000

Hares: Michael “Slow To Blow” Andonov, Sarah Fifield, Christine Hinz

On-In: Jake’s Dilemma

Scribe: Heather Malloy

Two weeks ago, we had Dave Byron-Brown’s “Revenge of Cornwall” death march. Last week, we had the very long Bastille Day trail replete with leg-numbing cow checks. After suffering such abuse, the midsized pack gathered at Jeff Koons’s Puppy looked more than a bit wary. Whether out of fear of taking away DB2’s latest WROTY title, or because a certain tall, blonde hare’s tarot card reader divined bad omens, today, the trio of Christine, Slow to Blow and the mysterious Sarah Fifield, went for safe in a big way. They chose to start at Rockefeller Center, a location safely in the center of midtown, and safely known to every hasher, virgin, and even every conceivable visitor. They carefully explained each and every mark the virgins might expect to see on trail, and repeated some tourist warnings issued by the Convention and Visitors Bureau about keeping to well-lighted areas and finding safety in numbers. They urged the whole pack to obey traffic laws, to avoid jaywalking, and sent us toward the first mark in front of the Time building. More than a few hashers ignored the stern warnings, and set off west following an obviously cheating Dave Hardy. The rest of us headed north, assuming that S2B’s involvement would have us running straight up through Riverside Park and straight back down. However, Riverside does have a reputation for shadiness, so the hares, ever concerned for our well being, set the trail into Central Park. Apparently, the tarot card reader doubles as a meteorologist, because the hares had taken their one big risk of the evening by using colored chalk on damp ground with rain threatening.

Luck prevailed, the rain held off, and the trail remained visible throughout. It meandered around lower Central Park a bit, interspersed by a few checks that may or may not have been easy; I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing “easy” because they were all solved by the time I got there. The trail zigged out of the park on the west side in the upper 70’s / lower 80’s, and a lightbulb marked “Jake’s Dilemma” went on over my head. But we’d only been on trail for about thirty minutes, so the trail accordingly zagged right back into the park for a good stretch of uphill running before making a counterclockwise loop back down to Jake’s, the safest on-in currently used in Manhattan.

S2B got the DJ to turn down the music to just below a deafening roar, so JMs Peter and Roy would be able to save their voices for another week. The hares drank for their trailsetting efforts. S2B being was awarded a second for obviously having nothing to do with the trail, known as he is for being too much of an engineer and setting ruler-straight trails. Then, Fluffy was called up for whipping it out in public, and Ariane was called to the mat for following him into the bushes, though she was too shell-shocked to explain her actions. Kyle earned the rabbit ears for his Olympic park bench hurdling. Virgins Steve, Elise, Edward, Jen, Josh, Scott and visitor Tom were next. Finally, virgin Josh was welcomed to the Hash in a special way when he was called up to drink again for running repeatedly around the fountain in the park without clueing in that something might be amiss.

Pizza arrived immediately after down-downs were complete, and was scarfed up just as quickly. (Yea, anchovy pizza!!) Things seemed remarkably subdued for a Jake’s on-in; no pants were yanked down, no visitors got naked, and in general, safety and caution were exercised by all. Except for those people that ate their pizza too quickly and got pizza burns on the roof of their mouths.