IH3 Trail #430

You know, I really hate it when someone promises to write the rehash and then puts it off and puts it off and all those who couldn’t make it and were hoping to live vicariously through the uber-literary beer-by-beer recounting are left bereft, empty, starved. It’s just so damned inconsiderate. So, first, apologies. I’d had a few beers and it seemed like a good idea at the time that I signed up to write said rehash … Well, at least I’m getting it out before the next hash! (if just barely)

You’ve seen the pictures, now here’s a thousand-or-so words (if you haven’t seen the pictures, ask Dances for the URL, it was so long ago, I’ve deleted it) …

The Shoe-Sucking Mud Hole (Re)Hash

There was a hash on May 23, set by BW and someone else who couldn’t have been Spike ’cause he never sets, and this is the rehash …

Hash number: ??
Date: May 23
Location: Robinson Hollow
Hares: BW and ??
Present:
Pond Scum and Sphincter Sicle (sp?) from Syracuse
Tequila Bill and Staffy Puller
Li’l Miss (and Murphy)
ET
JSUAD and Becky (sorry, I can’t remember your hash name; Lick Her Faster?)
Just Eric
Spike
Pussy Pong and Dances
Floss and LOA (and Mighty Max)
Swing Low
Road Kill
your scribe, Country Cock
[and 1/2 Monty and Hershey made an appearance on trail but didn’t stay long]

My hashing experience started cruising along 96B, wind in my hair, tunes in my ears, paying half a mind to where I was going as I cruised right on past Robinson Hollow Rd. The first of many times off-trail that day. U-turn. Bouncing along Robinson Hollow Rd., I soon came to a three-way. Normally, I’m all for threesomes, I mean-ways, but since none of the ways was marked, it made finding true trail (no, we’re not even at the start yet, folks) difficult. I checked the middle path–false up a driveway to someone’s house. Then along comes Road Kill, fresh from having checked another of the paths, which went for miles without any sign of hashers. And the left path looked like a driveway as well. Thank the soon-to-be-blasphemed god(s) that our saviors LOA and Floss had half a clue which one was Lacy Rd., and we soon rambled on our way … to the start. Which RK and Floss/LOA drove right by, U-turned, and drove on in to just in time to catch the tail end of the pack.



And off we went. Into the muddy woods where we were soon met by twisted pine debris and low-hanging branches–a.k.a. shiggy. Which we ran through, resulting in some blood-letting. And ran through some more, up and down, through muddy trails and more shiggy, until, at last, we ran down to a road and, as it crossed a stream, the first beer check. BW and the other hare hadn’t expected such a large turnout so they didn’t stock up the beer checks sufficiently, which forced the early arriving bastards to quickly grab a couple and start chugging. We stood around chatting a while. A few people played in the stream. Then 1/2 Monty came barrelling along, having picked up the scent of beer a few miles back (he stayed with us for a couple of beer checks and then was gone again–I think he had to run back to check the fishing lines he’s been dangling out into Seneca Lake for the past few weeks in preparation for our weekend).



Then from the other direction came Road Kill (you remember Road Kill, he was with us at the start and then I think he must have set off on one of his famous "shortcuts") and Rowdy Bush. RK had apparently done battle with an angry mother bear, who he’d pissed off after trying to get (really) friendly with one of her cubs, ’cause he was bleeding profusely by the time he hit the BC. And seeing that there was a shortage of beer, though weakened as he was, he refused any for himself. The hashers were appropriately touched and so were polite when they asked him to, in that case, not stand so close lest they get bled on.

Rowdy was let into the inner circle and given a beer. And we were soon off. Down (or up) the road a ways then left (here some people opted to "short cut" and stay on the road, though a bunch of people apparently in the know seemed to think it was actually longer along the road; more about that later) and down, down, to a stream, then back up, up, and up some more, back to the road (yeah, the same road), along it a little, then up and up, then (you guessed it) down and down (stupid, stupid, never give up the low ground, or is it never give up the high ground–never give up any ground! Should have hung out by the nice lake at the start …). Then along the road again (right, same ferkin’ road). At some point, we crossed the road and jogged a short ways to the stream (yup, same ferkin’ stream, too), narrowly avoiding some barbed wire betwixt the two. A few people cooled off in the stream (I think I missed a small waterfall somewhere in there, too, where some cooling off may have occurred). And soon we came upon beer check #2. Yay.

Now, about that barbed wire back there. Hashers who actually stayed on trail avoided it altogether, apparently, but since most people cut off a small chunk of trail (not to mention those who cut off anything that wasn’t directly on the road), a bunch of us ran right into a low string of barbed wire. Well, not exactly ran into, because most of us saw that we were about to run into said barbed wire before actually doing so, except for one poor hapless hasher. But for the grace of, well, something mighty, fortunately, he had his lucky magic walking stick with him that day, so when Floss ran smack into said barbed wire, he was protected by this mighty walking stick, which broke in two, saving him from serious injury. But for some reason, he didn’t give the stick the credit it was due, so he cursed it and his ill luck for leaving him with this broken useless completely unmighty walking stick, then he cursed some more. Several people reminded him later at the on in that that hapless piece of wood saved his sorry hide and he drank for that one, but more on that later. (Have you noticed the tattoo on his shin? A wizard with a walking stick or magic staff or something. Very interesting.)

So, beer check completed, we bid adieu to Rowdy, who was feeling peckish, and may have had a legitimate medical excuse concerning her ankle, and Spike, who was feeling chivalrous or just plain lazy, as they went up to the road to join the other SCBs. Then those few of us left set off again to find trail.

Well, the rest of us ran up, up, and up some more, around a bit through some gnarly pines (you remember them from the start, right), then down some through some more mud (yup, kind of like the start, only even more so, thus the name the Shoe-Sucking Mud Hole Hash), and then, ho, we were at the pond, having come at it from the other side.



Then we stood around for a while talking and drinking until the circle was called and we stood around talking and drinking some more and people shouted Hush Hush! Then we talked and drank some more. And calls for Hash Respect! were made. Until BW came over and stood between JSUAD and me and we started paying attention to what was going on in the circle. Where a bunch of comes lately’s were forced to drink. BLABs drank (Rowdy’s passengers, I can’t recall who they were, drank for making her late). FRBs drank (?). Sphincter Sicle and Pond Scum drank for being visitors. Hash Crash went to BW (I missed the actual moment, but passed on the airplane flotation vest to him). There were so many short cutting bastards that I think the non-short cutting bastards had to drink. Floss drank for the aforementioned cursing of the walking stick that saved his sorry hide. There was a murky moment recorded between LOA and Road Kill. BW then had a circle murky moment with PP; very touching, though there was not as much touching as BW had hoped, perhaps. We tried to name Just Eric, but no one had anything approaching a decent suggestion. And there was a beautiful side-side for Li’l Miss who was silly enough to have a birthday recently.

All the while, storm clouds gathered over the hash proceedings. No, not metaphorically, really. The sky would grow dark in the near distance, thunder and lightning would, well, thunder and flash, a few drops would fall, then it’d clear up for the most part. Until a few minutes later when another dark cloud would go by. Some rain did fall at some point, but for the most part it held off.

And our record for not doing a particularly good job of remembering hash songs, though not as bad as it has sometimes been, was upheld, whereupon, after much frustration at our pathetic lack of ability, Swing Low volunteered to be our new RA. At some point in the proceedings, Li’l Miss had dedicated a lovely little ditty to Swing Low, which, come to think of it, would actually make Li’l Miss a decent candidate for RA, but he’s leaving so fuck him. And SL does seem to have the hash rhythm in his bones, so we’ll see. For example, he led us in a fine round of S&M Man (which followed a bit of blaspheming Jesus), which segued nicely into Chicago (I used to work in …). There was another song or two, more drinking, then I left. Then all hell broke loose. I later heard there was naked mud wrestling and frolicking in the lake and something about sacrificing virgins to the thunder gods. I dunno. Just another Ithaca Hash.