New York City H3 Writeup, October 10, 1999 - Run No. 795

Hashes are not normally allowed to sponsor the treatments for another hasher's sexually incurred injuries, but Sunday's was an exception. For those of you who don't know, our esteemed Religious Advisor (nee J.M.) Crofty, not heeding his mother's warnings about "If you keep doing that, its going to stay that way", got his neck stuck in a twitch after one of his typically over physical romps a couple of summers ago. Seems the newly introduced couple was just finishing their fourth Spanish Cartwheel of the evening when

Two years later, Crofty has yet to get that crick out of his neck and he's forced to turn to the hash for the financial means to finance his treatments (four pints lager to be taken internally on a daily basis). Well, that's not true at all - he didn't ask the hash for anything, rather the hash was approached by someone wondering if we could do this for him. The exact story of how it all came together is lost as everyone involved in the planning had their memories completely erased by the birthday booze-a-thon held the night before, also in Crofty's honor. The ending of that evening and the beginning of the hash were only 11 hours apart for some - Crofty himself arriving at the start looking like he left a few quarts of blood at the bar.

It was no surprise that the pack was of a smaller than usual size considering the runs have switched to the winter Sunday schedule, and also that it had rained non-stop all morning - two things known to keep fair weather hashers at home in front of the TV (pretty rich coming from Troise 96 ed.). Most of us were glad though that it had rained all morning as that way it would be no surprise to the hares. Doesn't it suck when you set a trail in nice sunshiney weather, and then after you're done it rains and you say to yourself "Boy, I sure am sad I used chalk because as everyone knows, rain washes chalk away, or at the very least, the wet sidewalks soak through the chalk making them invisible. If only I had known it would rain I would have marked the trail in something more appropriate". So in this case, since it rained all morning, for sure the trail would be set in nothing but loads of gleaming white flour, in 1/2 pound glops spaced 20 feet apart on the sidewalk enclosed in florescent Day-Glo sidewalk paint . Right? RIGHT?

Of course not. The hares arrived and called the pack to order and announced that the trail was marked in gray chalk and unbleached flour. Unbleached flour? I don't know if you've seen unbleached flour, but it looks like dirt, not an uncommon thing to find on NY City sidewalks and hence utterly indistinguishable. Indeed, as Lawrence and Too Long proved, it can even be mistaken for dogshit of a certain breed and consistency. Great - a rainy day trail marked in invisible chalk and dirt and dogshit. We were told there would be two backchecks to boot - a dubious mark even on the best of days. Suckers that we are, we went off to run the trail instead of immediately pressing one of the hares into sweeping. By the time we found the first check we were already lost. Twenty minutes of hard core standing around later, Hardy's cries of "On-In" were heard from 1/4 mile away. We went through Riverside Park and back out towards Broadway and we lost trail again. At this point some ran back to the start to find out where the On-In was and rumors of "Dive Bar" started circulating. By the time we hit Central Park, and lost the trail again, Steve Brett and I decided to take matters into our own hands and short cut the hell out of the trail. We figured we were more than a mile away from the On-In as it was, were running for 45 minutes as it was and still had only done two checks and it was a given the trail was going to suck mightily inside the park. So we ran straight to the bar. Meanwhile, a more hardy band of five 96 Viagra Vince "get off my" Cloud, Trotskyo, Danny, Too Long and the star of this show himself, Crofty 96 had taken a blood oath or something similar that they would find the trail if it took them two weeks (a conservative estimate) and to hell with the hotline. It 92s a measure of the difficulty of this trail that even with these five hash veterans searching, it still remained defiantly invisible. Of course, it doesn 92t help if you end up losing each other in the ramble as well, but remember who we 92re dealing with here.

We were well into our second cup of beer before another hasher was seen. Then a few more came in at the 1.5 hour mark. It was during our fourth beer that the heart of the pack arrived, excluding the hasher of honor, Crofty. He, along with the rest of his merry band, arrived on the two hour mark (although Scott swore it was only 1:59:59). Obi-Wan Kanaga never made it, having last been sighted at the first check. And so, ladies and gentlemen, we have a new Official Worst Run Of The Year. Pat was summoned to do her last WROTY down-down and looked more dazed and surprised than when Too Long dropped her on her head in Coyote Ugly a few weeks back. We 92ll miss ya, Pat and Elaine. The proud new owners of the WROTY yellow jersey, Scott and Elliot, were then sworn in. Le roi est mort, vive le roi! or somesuch thing. Scott later revealed that the "theme" of this hash was that - wait for it - it only took left turns. Silly me! Can't believe I missed that one, it was so glaringly obvious! If only I'd known, I wouldn't have turned right at the dogshit. He also went on to add that his next run will be a "flashlight" run, which could well be the same trail run in pitch darkness. Betcha can't wait for that one.

Fashion police awards this time go to Alison, wearing the loudest pair of running shoes I've ever seen and who is no doubt attempting to follow that fashion victim Baldwin by wearing shoes the same colour as her hair, and of course Fluffy with his neon yellow spray-on figure-hugging shorts which leave not much to the imagination. The other stuff? Oh yeah - there was beer, which was drunk, and tacos, which were scoffed. There weren't even any talking chihuahuas trying to steal them from us. The mainly lethargic atmosphere was probably caused by Saturday night's after effects, possibly the Giants being on TV and possibly also Post Traumatic Stress from the trail. Scott and Elliot, enjoy your reign. See you at the next down-downs.

On out.