Run # 792 July 9, 2001

Hare:   Short Peck

Scribe:  The Slasher Dr WHO

Where:   Cumberland Hill

The Weather:  80's, Humid

Present: Basket Boom Boom, Bondo Jovi, Async, WIPOS, Dr. WHO, PW, Oozing SD, Shine On HM

Management: Jake, Ben, Baxter, Zoe

Commemorating: "Reed Dance Day", Swaziland.

The hare marked his return to the active hare list after years of sponging free beers off the long-suffering RIH3, with the proper spirit, showing genuine reverence for tradition by giving totally incompetent directions to the start. The ten virgins invited by Dr WHO, all college girls between the ages of 21 and 23, all got lost, and ended up skinny-dipping in nearby Sneech Pond. But the regulars all made it in a reasonable time. Most applied various concoctions designed to ward off poison ivy, and/or bugs; about as effective as taking the money they had spent on these lotions, rubbing it twice on their legs, and then inserting it into their nose. (Actually, this is exactly what Bondo did.) At the precise stroke of 6:39, they were off.
                    

A check five yards away from the cars provided some appropriate confusion to the immense enjoyment of the local picnickers, but soon the trail was found at the southern corner of the playing fields. Through some bushes, then onto roads generally heading southeast down the hill. It became clear that Short Peck had set much of the trail before the rainfall on Sunday. The subsequent heat had baked the moistened flour into excellent unleavened matzo crackers, providing sustenance to the dieting Bondo as well as a feast of religious significance to the interfaithful PW. Soon the trail led back into the woods next to a house where a hysterical dog and his irate mistress yelled at the group to be quiet. This of course stimulated a variety of auditory responses including a Tarzan yell from Oozing, an official 'piping-the-Admiral-aboard' salute on Dr. WHO's bosun's pipe, and a flatulated Hallelujah chorus from Basket, who had forgotten his bugle.

Async led to the banks of the mighty Blackstone River, where a path overgrown with poison ivy and nettles led northwest. WIPOS and Oozing found an area with dried mud with a distinctly fecal odor. Another opportunity for excellence ruined by the persistent good weather that has plagued this hash for the last few months. When will it end?! WIPOS, clothed once again in his usual environmental armor, rolled in it for a while hoping to bring back memories, but to no avail.

After an all too brief sojourn in the woods, trail came out by a sawmill, and then, back on the macadam to an old folks home. Bondo, a gleam in his eye for some of the matrons on the shuffleboard court, puffed out his chest, and slowed down, waiting for catcalls. Basket, rocked for a while on the porch, trading surgical stories and prostatic woes with the gentlemen. The remainder ran in confusion around the parking lot, provoking two heart attacks, a minor stroke, and several episodes of incontinence. Finally out to Manville Road, across the street into the Manville Quarry, where the beer stop was found near the river landing area used in Hash #782.

Hashers admiring their reflection on Short Peck's head

The beer was an uneasy mix of Trinity brew with Bondo brew, with a few too many hops in the wort for a sensitive stomach. Short Peck, in an effort to live up to his name and lineage, provided shrimp and cocktail sauce. Seeing the group genteelly eating their shrimp and sipping porter, passers-by mistook the hash for The Manville Ornithological Society, and stopped to ask if they had any extra cucumber sandwiches. PW was mortified, and launched into a graphic description of his son's circumcision, using a shrimp as a visual aid. Naturally "When I was eight days old..." followed. Onwards they went, back on trail towards the quarry.

A flour shortage in the quarry sent Bondo and WIPOS shortcutting up a vertical slope of loose scree to the top of the thirty foot cliff in the hope that they could urinate on the group below. Cries of "Jump, Bondo, jump!" were ignored, and the rest followed trail up to the top at a more reasonable grade. In the woods, the ruins of an Aztec temple was encountered (as so often happens this close to Woonsocket). Hidden in its caves were members of the Cumberland High School Making-Noises-Like-Barnyard-Animals Junior Varsity team, having a practice. They were readying an attack on the hashers, thinking that they were corresponding members of the Mount St. Charles squad, but Shine On's attempt at imitating a cock crow convinced them that they had nothing to worry about. Northeast halfway to the top of the hill, east to Manville road again, then up through woods consisting of seven bushes and a sickly swamp maple tree to the back of the playing fields at the starting point. Total: maybe three miles, 0.5 in woods, one pathetic scratch on PW's leg, 7 vesicles of poison ivy on Dr WHO, and dry shoes all around. No wonder Short Peck hasn't hared for years.

Shine On admonishing Dr Who for breaking wind again

The ceremony was held in the children's playground (appropriately enough) after bullying a few of the tykes home crying to their mothers ("Gwan, gedaddahere!' snarled Oozing at a teary-eyed but spunky 6 year old girl, as he stole her lunch box and kicked her off the swings.) A circle was joined around a pile of tires on a platform with an escape hatch beneath. The hare received the usual charitable scores. (This I believe, is because the list of hares keeps shrinking, and we can't afford to offend anyone except Basket, and we can't seem to offend him anyway no matter how hard we try.) Bondo brought water and baptized the hare, as the group watched the sun set, reflected beautifully in his moistened pate. Basket, as co-hare took his place in the circle and stripped to his worn speedo underwear, provoking a wave of nausea in the group which, along with his urination aimed at Bondo, brought the circle to a quick end. Swinging low by a picnic table, they moved on to Short Peck's apartment.

Now you know why we call him Short Peck

While WIPOS and Shine On fought to counteract the nausea provoked by the all-too familiar sight of a naked Basket with exotic South American medication, the rest moved upstairs where pizza was ordered, darts were played inside while building codes were violated on the terrace, beer was spilled on the receding hareline and carpet, and music was played on the TV. Seven hours later the pizza arrived, and the skeletal remains of the starving bunch crawled weakly to the door and were sustained. The first hash in months without a virgin or visitor, and our record remains proud and true: no one comes back for seconds after running with us!

On On

The Slasher Dr. W.H.O.