I have, on occasion, been asked about the qualities that make a good scribe. My answer is that I have no idea--go ask Byron-Brown. Limited though I am, it happens that I immensely enjoy doing these write-ups, and I am grateful that some of you seem to enjoy them (or at least that you pretend that you do--a large part of my life involves self-delusion, anyway). One reason that I am so loathe to delegate the responsibility is that you'll discover that there is no talent, on my part, involved. I'm certain that a chimp with two minutes training on a word processor could be more entertaining--certainly, at least, more astute. For me, though, the most important part of the write-up is the opening paragraph where a topic is chosen that ties the whole thing together. Sometimes, the topic occurs to me during the run, or at the on-in. Often it happens on the way home or the next day. Once in a great while, the topic is so obvious that I am able to write the first paragraph before the run. Such was the case for the hash on October 19 that began, as did last week's, at the Hoboken PATH station. The Bugs Bunny cartoon and the quote about Hoboken were perfectly suited to that day's run and write-up. Unfortunately, I've now exhausted my supply of Hoboken references, hence this ramble. A good scribe adapts seemlessly; a mediocre one adapts adequately and hopes no one notices. I adapt clumsily and exacerbate the problem by drawing attention to it.
So we returned to the western shore of the Hudson. Ho-BO-ken. . . . ..Ooooooooh, I'm dyyyyyyy-in' again. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) For the third consecutive week, the weather was less than ideal, and this, combined with the off the beaten track location, especially one that we were using for the second time within a month, kept the size of the pack down to about twenty. Upon arrival at the start, around 2:45, I went into one of the bars across the street to have a quick beer, and to escape the wind and wet, accompanied by Keith, Marie and a relative newcomer in a University of Nebraska jacket, who claims to be a business associate of Mike Hoffman (he actually does have a job). Little by little, other hashers arrived, and joined us in the front corner of the bar. I'm certain the management was quite pleased to have the twenty of us huddled together, using the front of their establishment as a changing room--all for the price of three pints. Most of the conversation involved three topics. First, the stock market, and how busy several of our number involved in the capitalist manipulation of the international monetary system and the resultant rape of the working classes had been lately; second, whether or not there would be any kind of trail, given the rain; and third, who, exactly, was this mysterious hare, Robert White (I figured that he was Brett's imaginary friend). By around 3:15, the hares arrived, and we discovered that Robert was real, indeed, and happened to be one of those relative newcomers whose face most of us had yet to associate with a name. That situation has been forever remedied, for from now on, he will be remembered for the bright yellow Gorton's fisherman's hat he was wearing. Once we were all assembled, Steve gave the instructions for the trail. He assured us that the first several marks were still there. After that, we were on our own. We were also informed that the trail was in flour, and that there were no falses. Off we went, believing that there would be no need to do too great an amount of checking in the rain.
Basically, the trail turned out to be a reversal of the trail that Steve set with Dave Hardy the three weeks prior. Unfortunately, several members of the pack, your scribe included, never got to see most of it. We left the start, running through a parking lot, zigzagging through the streets and coming upon the first check after about six minutes. That was, pretty much, the last mark several of us saw. We searched hopefully, running up and around the blocks surrounding the check, finding nothing. A couple of times, I went down the same streets several times, as if marks that weren't there a few minutes earlier might suddenly appear. After a while, the call of on-on was heard from the direction we had originally come. The trail had been discovered, or so we thought, following a devious backcheck. We probably should have known better. First of all, neither of the hares appeared bright enough to think of, much less execute, such a maneuver. Besides this, the first mark was found at a haphazard distance and placement from the check, meaning that we had probably stumbled upon another section of the trail. It didn't matter, though. We were just happy to finally be on any part of the trail.
We had run less than a block when JM Croft came running towards us. Indeed, we had come upon the end of the trail, and the on-in was only a couple of blocks away. By this time, we had barely been out 20 minutes, and we decided to take a brief run through the neighborhood. After, a while, I found myself with Bo and Marie, runners of ability quite superior to my own, both of whom had achieved excellent times in the previous week's NYC Marathon. As we ran, and I kept pace, I found myself thinking that I too might, someday, be able to run a marathon in a fairly respectable time. It was not long before I was punished for such hubris. Almost immediately, they were a block ahead and the gap was widening. I finally stumbled into the on-in more convinced than ever of my place on the running food chain.
There were only about 5 or 6 hashers inside Cryan's Exchange when we arrived, meaning that most of the rest of the pack had found the trail, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Just about everyone was in within an hour, so everything worked out all right in the end, despite earlier problems on the trail. Given the abundance of bars in Hoboken, it seemed kind of mindless to use the same bar we had just used three weeks earlier, but I suppose, if the hares could basically plagiarize the earlier trail, why not the on-in site, as well? (As noted earlier, we weren't expecting much from Robert and Steve in the brainpower department.) Besides, isn't it a fairly well established NYCH3 tradition to exhaust pubs that have welcomed us in the past?
On the positive side, if you're going to overuse a bar, you may as well overuse a good one. Once again, the hares had negotiated an open bar until 7pm with $15 hash cash, and the choice of beers was excellent. JM Croft, this time making the trip across the river, called the group to order for the down-downs. As has become the tradition on runs that go off a few feet south of perfectly, the hares were mandated to do two. I suppose chugging two Budweisers is fairly severe punishment. There was also a down-down for survivors of the previous week's marathon, one for Sung Hee, there as a civilian (again, in a replay of three weeks ago) and one for a visitor, a friend of Petra's named Claudia, I believe, who was, if I heard correctly, in town to assist with her friend's recent move. I assume coming to the hash was her reward for this good deed.
By the time we got through the down-downs, the food was beckoning. Following a fast rendition of grace, it was attacked. Once again, there was pasta, salad and garlic bread, and later, as a special bonus, chicken nuggets. The bar never did get too crowded, so there was room to spread out for polite conversation or football viewing, if what the Giants committed last Sunday can be categorized as football. As is often the case, a good on-in makes for a good day, and everyone seemed happy with their run, whether they were on the trail or not. A nice job, then, to Robert and Steve for helping us to persevere under less than stellar circumstances.
At about 6pm, Laird and I departed with the idea of stopping off at Dive 75 to watch the end of the football game over a final beer. When we arrived, we found the Burke and Hardy parties there at, for what has become for many of us on the West Side, a second home. You never know where you're going to find another on-in.
As I got a bit a grief for leaving a blank page on last week's handout, I've violated my one run-one page rule, and let this run a bit long. It also gives me the chance to comment--vent my spleen--on current events for the first time in several weeks. First, we have the situation in Iraq. Every year, the buffoon who runs that poor excuse for a sovereign nation gets his jollies by tweaking the US and the rest of the world, in one way or another, and the jackasses who are in authority in our country allow it to happen by actually paying attention to him, thus fulfilling his primary desire. The truth is, despite all the overheated reporting and rhetoric, he is no real danger. Americans have always needed to create an enemy, and then demonize it. Besides, if he were actually a present threat, Israel would have blown up his capacity to make weapons by now, (anybody heard anything from Khaddafi lately?) and, while he may kill his own people, he knows that his country will be flattened if he attacked an enemy with the wherewithal to retaliate. Still, if there is a reason to get rid of him (I assume the CIA knows something about this subject), we should get on with it, and cut out the hand wringing. Waiting for the Gulf War coalition to form again is ludicrous as our supposed allies, France and Russia for example, are more interested in cashing in on trade with Iraq than supporting their defense concerns. Turns out that the communists were right about one thing, at least.
The other big news--tabloid--story of recent weeks is that of the British au pair (not nanny, as there is a difference between the two. It's kind of like those TV commercials that tell viewers to call professional psychics, and not to be fooled by phony psychics) in suburban Boston, another easy issue made complex by morons. The idea that this girl could have been guilty of murder and should be spend her life in jail is ridiculous (there are questions about the quality of her legal advise, and the motives and intelligence of her advisors), but in vacating the earlier verdict, as he was right to do, the judge, with two possible choices, got it completely wrong. If, as was his finding, the girl is guilty of manslaughter, then less than a year--time served--is wholly insufficient as a sentence for the crime. If she is not guilty, as may be the case given evidence of a pre-existing head injury, then, and only then, should she go free. That said, what I can't fathom is the motivation of the parents, a pair of doctors with some level of wealth, pinching pennies on child care (what could possibly be more important?) by hiring a glorified baby sitter to attend to an eight month old infant, instead of more qualified help as do people of more modest means. It's a shame that their parsimony may have, in part at least, been the cause of such a dire consequence. And by the way, does anyone else find all this cheering following the rendering of judgments a little unseemly?
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