Legend tells us that many thousands of years ago, a supreme being looked down upon his dominion on earth, and was extremely displeased. Despite his good intentions, wickedness and depravity abounded, a situation that demanded the complete distruction of all the living inhabitants of the planet--sort of a larger scale of the Viet Nam syndrome, where the village had to be destroyed in order to be saved. In any event, the weapon selected for the annihilation was a torrential downpour that lasted 40 days and nights--a little extreme perhaps, but effective nonetheless. Meanwhile, a small band of survivors was holed up in a small, hot, uncomfortable little space.
This is not to say that anything going on in the world today requires the eradication of the planet--only selected examples of banality and silliness: First there is the fascination with pictures of reddish tinged rocks (being investigated by a child's toy truck), supposedly from another planet, being named after cartoon characters, which will eventually be found to originate from the New Mexico desert. Then, there is the incredible idiocy of one heavyweight boxer feeling the need to snack on another. Then there is the trial involving two subhuman scum know as the Chin and the Bull, where what is needed most is to find everyone involved, including their incredibly tedious family members, and various other supporters and antagonists, guilty and sentenced to banishment, out of the eye of the media. Finally, there is Fred Goldman, the extremely tiresome father of one of O.J. Simpson's victims, applying to host a radio talk show (not one to capitalize on his grief, of course), suggesting, at least in one viewer's humble opinion, that O.J. probably killed the wrong Goldman. Maybe we can put them all on the next rocket to Mars, or at least on a bus to New Mexico.
The storm that came through the city on Wednesday evening, while not quite wrath of God stuff, was enough to screw up a run pretty well. But then, like roaches, hashers will survive anything. Coming out of Grand Central a little before 7pm, I ran into Paul and Eva, under an awning, sheltered against the downpour. After waiting for the storm to abate, without success, for about 10 minutes, we headed a block south to the start of the run, where a pack of about 30 awaited. Finally, around 7:20, the hares arrived and the rain let up. I suppose that the powers of nature finally realized that they can't defeat a hash. Well, at least not completely. Peter and Sue opined that the trail was well marked, and probably intact. They then rushed off to secure a cab, let us know that the hotline would be set early, and sent us on our way.
We headed south, then west. To this point, the trail was intact. We ran past Bryant Park, and then further west toward the theater district, where the evening performances were about to begin. Whether anything on Broadway that night was as entertaining to those aficionados of the stage as the sight of more than two dozen waterlogged hashers is not known. By the time we hit Eight Avenue we ran out of both luck and marks. While most of the pack headed north, several of the rest of us went back east, finding marks back on Broadway, and later, on Sixth Avenue in the lower 50s. That was the last I saw of the trail, so I decided to call the hotline, the better to facilitate the exchange of rainwater for beer. With young Matt in tow, I headed north towards this particular hash's 1997 answer to Noah's Ark.
It was, no doubt, Peter's expectation that the on-in would be held on the roof of his building, but the continuing rain made this an impossibility. As a result, the surviving members of this war (run) of attrition, gathered, soaked to the skin, in his apartment. It's unlikely that we helped property values, but given the quality of the venue, we probably didn't hurt them significantly. The first order of business for most was to put on dry clothing. Several did this, more or less, out in the open, but several gentlemen repaired to the bedroom to change. After several moments, Lesley walked in, and rather than exit with appropriate modesty, she stood there, silently, enjoying the show. We're still awaiting her review.
There was a keg of Samuel Adams for our drinking pleasure, and just before the pizza arrived, the down-downs were held, JM Croft presiding solo. Somehow, everyone squeezed into the living room while the various usual offenses were toasted. Among those honored was Mike, celebrating his 30th birthday. He took advantage of the occasion to invite most of his friends to the on-in--not really a huge increase to the crowd.
The remainder of the evening was spent in fairly polite conversation--well, for us, at least. I have a recollection of a discussion about the advancing age of men, and their relative number of sexual experiences. As it was birthday boy Mike who was instigating this discussion, it's likely that he was talking about sexual experiences with relatives.
Several times, the rain let up enough to allow people to congregate on the roof, only to be forced down soon after. In all, it was quite an enjoyable evening in spite of the fact that the weather refused to cooperate. We were all, in the end, quite pleased to finally be indoors. It's unlikely that the animals on the ark were as well taken care of, even if there was probably less room in Peter's apartment. On the plus side, we were probably more sanitary, if only a little.
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