This year's first Sunday run of the NYCH3 was the culminating event of a full weekend of hashing activities held in honor of a group of about 20 hashing visitors from Berkshire, England.
An over-the-top Friday night East Village pub-crawl spearheaded by Ewa started the weekend's enduro-hashing activities as we just barely recovered from Wednesday's Welcome run for the Baa-rkshire Sheepshaggers. Ewa did a memorable job (although some of the details are now blurry from the alcohol) as we even experienced several newly opened, soon-to-be hot-spots that will never let a group like us in again, and she took us to corners of the city we never even knew existed.
Following was a Saturday afternoon of hashing. This time, the Berkshires set the trail and we had to play by their rules and put up with their idiosyncrasies. This included a prompt start time (what a concept), blobs and blobs of flour (another novel concept) and swept checks (hmmm...now here's something that should really be considered by those in contention for WTOTY.).
In terms of idiosyncrasies, on-in activities on Saturday at Flannery's included unrestrained singing of hash hymns that cleared out the entire bar, multi-colored funny bunny pants, enormous down-downs and the employment of "the chicken." This is a ritual in which a down-down is poured into a rubber chicken and the offending hasher drinks beer out of the chicken's butt -- truly a sight to behold and which visibly put our Chug Master Rick Chann to the test.
The Sunday noon hash was rather well attended, given the early hour and coldish weather. When I arrived, the Berkshire's had made themselves rather comfortable by sprawling themselves along several sun-splashed benches just at the entrance of Central Park. But instead of being allowed to cuddle up with the crew, Berkshire GM C5 dispatched me on a mission to make sure that our start wasn't actually inside the park as he and others had already spotted the first markings of the trail in their usual pre-hash excitement. When I returned, the Sheepshaggers expressed to me their unusual enthusiasm about the possibilities of shiggy on the trail, with one hasher noting that the downside of urban hashing in NYC is that all the cars and cabs keep getting in the way of otherwise interesting trails (and here I thought half the fun of hashing in NYC is playing in traffic).
Our run was a foot tour of Central Park's major highlights and as quickly as we entered the Park and looped back around on a horse trail, (with horse manure firmly qualifying as shiggy and a definite trail highlight), Sheepshagger Max set the tone by belting to those cutting the trail, "You NINNIES!! You Dirty, Trail-Cutting, Sheepshagging Bastards!!" And while this took me aback at first, it seemed to not at all phase our youthful newcomer Amy, as she laughed along with the others (and cut the trail), taking it all in stride.
Things lightened up even more from there, as we stopped along the trail for bathroom breaks, made our way to Bethesda Fountain and Belvedere Castle and stopped for photo-ops. Eventually, we made our way up to the Harlem Meer, where Bershirite Lemming led us like his namesake into the gardens to take in the last breath of summer. At this point, the Sheepshaggers stopped to sit on benches, posed for more photos and waved to New Yorkers, with their exuberance actually eliciting smiles and other positive responses.
Soon after, our hare Bomber came by to remind us of the trail at hand and swept us along to a killer check that had us stumped for a good 15 minutes. The upside, as only our relentlessly optimistic BH3 friends could point out, was that it gave us more time to wander and chat and have the back of the pack rejoin the front (I bet this crew has never experienced the horrors of blue chalk, FRBs or unmarked checks). Once again, Bomber came to our rescue, leading us to believe that maybe he and his co-hare had set the trail the night before after a few too many cocktails. But soon enough our mid-day jaunt came to an end at JB's Dive Bar, where plenty of beer, football (the American kind), tacos and warm clothing awaited.
J.M. Gilbert started the proceedings with down-downs for hares Peter "da Bomb" Lancaster and John "Dog's Bollocks" Burke, civilians and others crazy enough to do the half-marathon and half-marathon and hash, including Ewa (who earned another down-down for her personal worst at the race), Michele and Daves Long and Hardy. Crazy Ray from NJ got a down-down for losing track of his mind -- I mean, the time; and newcomers such as German Dan and Virgin Amy were saluted, among others. (Somewhere in there another down-down went to Dave Long for having something to do with soccer team alliances, but it's far too British for me to understand.) Then Roy summoned the entire Berkshire crew for a final group down-down.
Berkshire GM Dave C5 then took over and in his rather animated style, gave down-downs to JM Gilbert for being MIA for most of the Berkshire's stay, as well as to the very few native NYers actually in attendance and another salute to John Burke for coordinating our cultural hash exchange program. Then C5 told us a story about one of his hasher's, LeVoisin, who committed the ultimate travel partner faux-pas when he left his teeth on the sink for his roommate to discover in the middle of the night.
The Berkshire group left soon after commenting on the horribleness of Rheingold beer for use in down-downs and inhaling large quantities of tacos (good hashers). During the course of their stay, this engaging group of Baa-rkshire Sheepshaggers, including GM C5, Lemming, Mother Theresa, Bomber, Chuck, Florence and Zebidee, Max, Iceman and the distinguished LeVoisin, was able to quickly break through the sometimes darkish demeanor of even the toughest New York Hash House Harrier curmudgeons, leaving impressions not soon to be forgotten (If only I could forget that chicken!).
On out.