Engineers are a strange breed. Very straight-ahead, literal kinds of people,
who do not take kindly to metaphor, abstraction, or surprises. STB exemplifies
the breed, as demonstrated by his famous six mile trails that go straight down
through Riverside Park without a single turn, or his equally famous two-page
instruction sheet for attending his New Years Eve party, which covered everything
from acceptable drinks that one might bring to what kind of socks everyone should
consider wearing. The idea that STB would set a live trail, which has all kinds
of potential for (gasp) surprises, made everyone a little leery of showing up
for Wednesday night's trail. Plus it was raining.
True to his "straight ahead" reputation, (and reputation for myopia), STB got
on the Broadway line at the 72nd Street stop, and was so busy rearranging his
chalk, flour and bag that he managed to not notice that I was sitting next to
him for four stops. When he finally did recognize me, it was just as he was
about to get off at the wrong station. I shoved him off at 125th, where he thoughtfully
chalked an arrow on the soaking wet sidewalk with navy blue chalk. Back to that
"leery of showing up" thing, I started to get a little nervous. And did I mention
rain? The miniscule pack huddled under a construction bridge outside of Clinton's
office building, where STB chalked "IS", and then launched into a long winded
explanation of the joke, (abridged version: "It depends on your definition of
'is'".), before pulling out a prepared list of taunts that he had run by co-hare
Chris prior to the run, designed to goad the pack into catching him. (See attached).
So much for spontaneity. STB handed out red and blue chalk, we loaded our bags
into a waiting hashmobile, waited until the last of STB and Chris's headstart
10 minutes to strip, and took off after them to the east.
The trail turned south to Marcus Garvey park and the first check. After a few
false trails were discovered, we ran up the big giant rock, only to run back
down the other side, and continue south and east to Central Park, and the next
check. The trail went up a long set of stairs on Harlem Hill, then managed to
go up some more stairs, before dipping briefly down, then up yet again. We crossed
the west drive to one more long uphill, before finally heading down to the drive,
and out the west side of the park. By then, everyone figured it would be Jake's,
so the trail would have been easy to follow even if it had been difficult, which
it wasn't. It must have been Chris's influence, but the trail was short, easy
to follow, and interesting, especially for a live trail. And they even managed
to set falses, and mark them! As it turned out, it was a nearly-completely-set-ahead-of-time
trail, and not live at all. I guess that's an engineer's idea of a live trail,
but oh well.
It seems as though we've rectified whatever problems we had with Jake's in the
past, and we settled into the back room as though we never left. Peter and Dave
gathered everyone around to mete out down downs in the corner, where the noise
from the d.j. was somewhat below ear-shattering levels. First up were the "live"
hares, with STB putting in a shockingly Ewa-esque performance in the chugging
department. They drank a second one for neglecting to set the hotline, which
almost excluded the "Hashers Who Don't Hash" contingent, which almost meant
that John Burke and fan club couldn't celebrate his birthday with us. Next came
JM Peter for failing to put down packmarks. The rabbit ears went to Cree, whose
speed in running was directly contradicted by his sluggishness in drinking.
In fact, he was so slow, a harriette got bored and de-pantsed him to spice up
the proceedings. Sarah got one for her birthday, and so did someone called Swinging
Tits. [Ed: I am taking this from Dave's notes, but have no memory of any such
person, so don't accuse me of making this up.] Fireman Bob was punished for
running the trail backwards. Returning Fleet Week visitors Steamin' Semen, Jeff
and John came up. And finally, STB got AOTW for being as scripted as the Academy
Awards. On out.