Bondo's Blackstone Beer-Baptism Hash
Run: #851 August 19, 2002
Hare: Bondo
Location: Woonsocket/Blackstone, MA
Scribe: The Slasher Dr Who
Weather: Mid 80's, Humid but clear
Present:
The Slasher Dr. W.H.O., Basket Boom Boom, W.I.P.O.S., EverReady, Just Jake, Baxter, Ben, Jake, Just Big Sh*t, Dogmeat.
Visitors: TreeHouse (or Just Chris(?)) from Heartland H3, Leavenworth, KA; Kneeling Room
Only (KNO) from Boston H3; Humpy Heifermeister (allegiance unknown, but suspected to be the Newport
H3-and-Beach-Volleyball/Bowling League).
Virgin: Just Emil
Commemorating: The 56th Birthday of William Clinton, former President, Lawyer,
Cigar Entrepreneur, and owner of the "Little Rock Sand-and-Gravel Pit".
The Run:
Bondo the hare was late getting organized for the start of the run. He posted d'erections into the RIH3 Guestbook (where thankfully, they may be viewed for all eternity) that are certain to become classics in the annals of the Receding Hareline. These instructions were so garbled that even Bondo got lost going home the day prior to the run simply because he had a copy of the printout on his dashboard. Dr WHO attempted to make things more clear for virgins and visitors. Unfortunately, his hazy recollections of Woonsocket are so distorted by the sad and painful memories of previous visits that this was not much help. Basket stepped to the plate. He pasted Dr WHO's instructions with editorial comments and corrections to the Guestbook with predictably bizarre results. The overall combination was incomprehensible. In spite of this, the first arrival to the Bondotorium was a visitor.
A refugee from the Heartland H3 in Ft Leavenworth, KA, TreeHouse is apparently an Army man, studying at Brown University on temporary duty. He said little of his past at first. But as the evening progressed, his story slowly emerged. A juvenile delinquent with a penchant for domestic quadrupeds, he was caught with a Georgia mule in the hills of Tennessee. A creative but stern judge sentenced him to a choice: ten at Leavenworth, eleven at Twelveworth or five-and-ten at Woolworth. Choosing the first option, he was inducted into the Army. One day while on liberty in greater Leavenworth, he was pursuing a flirtatious ewe into a cornfield. He ran into a group of hashers with the same goal. They hit it off immediately. He began hashing and was named when he came up with the idea of stalking the reluctant Kansas sheep from a hidden platform built into Leavenworth's (only) tree. The Army applauds this kind of initiative. They sensed an opportunity and soon transferred him to temporary duty at Brown to study "Diversity and Tolerance among Farm Animals". In Providence of course, he wanted to resume hashing locally. He was initially stumped by the directions on the website. However, the Army has its resources. On this particular evening, he used the Army spy satellite system along with the top-secret CIA Directory of "Home-Brewers Suspected of Communist Sympathies" to triangulate and make his way to Bondo's house. He observed from his car for a while. Dr WHO arrived. TreeHouse took one look and said: "I don't think we're in Kansas any more, Toto."
The two were soon joined by Basket, Dogmeat, WIPOS, and Just Jake. Your scribe believes that this is Just Jake's fourth hash in a row (Note: two weeks preceding this according to the HashTrash, he ran using the alias 'Just Craig'). He still hasn't brought any coed virgins with him. What's wrong with him? Does he like running with middle-aged men? But I digress. While the hare was pre-boasting of his trail, JBS and Dogmeat went upstairs to practice sensual massage techniques in the hot tub. EverReady and KNO arrived with seconds to spare. No one wanted to listen to the hare's instructions, so they were off.
Led by Just Jake, TreeHouse, and Dr WHO, the pack headed north on Woodland to Gaskill St. An easily mastered check sent them east and uphill. They noted uneasily that there seemed to be an excess of flour, unheard of on a Bondo trail. What could it mean? Basket and Dr. WHO began to complain of shin-splints from all the pavement as they turned uphill, north again on a dead end street with a path to the left. They finally entered the woods and came downhill into a sand-and-gravel pit. This seemed quite promising. But not for long. The checks were obvious. Flour was liberally strewn along the paths. There were no briars. There was no poison ivy. A few broken beer bottles, rotting tires, a rusting washing machine and some used condoms were the only shiggy. It was very sad.
The leaders surged ahead northeast on a railroad grade and the gap widened between Just Jake and TreeHouse in front and WIPOS, EverReady and KNO in the rear. [Why is it that whenever we have visitors or virgins they always seem to be faster than the regulars? And smarter. And they never return. Questions to ponder, indeed!] The railroad grade split Harris pond, and Basket stopped for a while to resuscitate Baxter in the water. The leaders continued on, crossing Farm Street into a sand-and-gravel pit. The true trail continued on the railroad grade briefly. A falsie led across Harris Pond to a sand-and-gravel pit. True trail veered north into a sand-and-gravel pit. Then it was out onto a small spit of land extending into the pond with an arrow urging the hashers to cross ten yards of open water. A pitiably obvious ploy, with the shiggy-avoidance trail in plain view a few feet away. Nevertheless, Just Jake and Dr WHO were feeling the heat and decided to plunge in anyway. Expecting relief, they encountered water so HOT that it ACTUALLY BEGAN TO MELT THE LAYERS OF SCUM off Dr WHO's shiggy-shoes. (And this scum is all that holds them together.) All thoughts of swimming were abandoned, as dangerous cleanliness might have resulted.
The trail then recurved sharply northwest into a sand-and-gravel pit. A steep hill of dirt, sand, and pebbles was climbed creating a most satisfactory coating upon the hashers wet shoes. The dust cloud arising from the runners on the loose scree mushroomed into the air and was seen by WIPOS almost a half-mile back. He warned EverReady and KNO that there could be a dangerous forest-fire ahead, and he recommended that they take shelter in a nearby sand-and-gravel pit. But just then they heard the unmistakable yelps of Ben the wonder dog, and emerged to find the hare driving to the Beer Check. They quickly joined him, bypassing another painful segment of hot macadam that the long-suffering FRB's were about to enter.
Back on trail, Dr WHO and Just Jake followed flour through a sand-and-gravel pit west to the Cemetery Capital of the western world: Farm Street in Blackstone. Convinced that the trail would take advantage of this wealth, they split up. Dr WHO searched the cemeteries of St Stanislaus and St Charles. TreeHouse took Pickering Cemetery and The Polish National Cemetery. Just Jake scoured the cemeteries of SS Michael and Paul, while Basket moved further south to check out Precious Blood Cemetery (in Millerville on the far side of Harris Pond near a sand-and-gravel pit). Finally, it was proven that all this fertile and sacred ground remained unused. They regrouped and made the long trek down Farm St following only the sound of Ben's howling. The Beer Check was at a Texaco Station, apparently abandoned, on the corner of Farm and Gaskill. The hare, EverReady, KNO and WIPOS were gathered, waiting by the hare's truck. There wasn't a single sand-and-gravel pit in sight.
This Beer Check was another Bondo milestone in hashing: nothing that could even remotely be said to represent beer was offered. The hare had taken his leftover "Honey Ale" (actually carbonated horse urine with nuances of stale sweat socks and old earwax, and a "bo-kay like an aborigine's ahmpit, Bruce!") and mixed it with ginger ale to create a shandy. 'Beer' is about the ONLY four-letter word in frequent usage in Woonsocket that WOULD NEVER be used to describe this mixture. The visitors rapidly moved on to drink some water, secretly cursing the friends who had told them that the RIH3 always has great beer.
They made conversation in the shade of the truck (hoping against hope that the hare would suddenly say: "Surprise! Here's the real stuff!" and produce some beer). A car pulled up and parked next to the group. Just Emil got out slowly, perhaps somewhat the worse for wear from a few Bloody Marys back home. He introduced himself as the octogenarian owner of the Texaco station. He inquired at to the nature of the gathering that happened to be upon his property. The hare gave a brief description of the goals of the RIH3. He said: "Anyone who runs in this kind of weather must be some kind of retard." He was not smiling. Just in the nick of time the quick-thinking hashers touched and astounded him with a tuneful rendition of:
You can trust your car
To the man who wears the star:
That Big, Red, Texaco STAR!
followed by (Emil smoked menthols):
You can take Salem out of the country
But… "ding"
You can't take the country out of Salem!
He was practically in tears, and invited the group to join him for his 100th birthday party just a few short years hence. The group promised to keep an opening on their calendars.
Meanwhile, back in Woonsocket, Humpy Heifermeister had arrived. Our readers will recall that this lad had run with the RIH3 several times last fall, but had to switch to Newport (perhaps because some latent tendencies of his were brought too close to emergence by the enticing and erotic sight of WIPOS in full battle gear). Two weeks earlier he had returned for the Eager Beaver run (#848), hoping that all those girls could keep him on the right track. Why he returned this night is hard to fathom. At any rate, he set out on trail. But Woonsocket at night can be deceiving. He followed the sounds of what he thought were hashers: whistles, screams, shouts, barks and bugle-calls. This led him almost directly into a rehearsal of the Woonsocket Philharmonic Orchestra being held in a sand-and-gravel pit behind the Social Street School.
For the rest, the trail back was an uneventful stroll through Woonsocket. West on Gaskill, then south, east, west, and north on Summer, Winter, Spring and Fall Streets, back to Meadow and the on in. The hare had prepared for a solemn ceremony: Baptism-by-Bondo-Brew. He had opened the sand-and-gravel pit in his backyard and covered it with a waterproof tarpaulin. Above this he had placed a vat filled with the undrinkable evidence of a misspent life: 40+ gallons of rancid homebrew. A tap fashioned from an empty Coors Light can (now we know what Bondo drinks at home!) controlled this surprisingly viscous liquid. The runners joined in a circle around the pit.
The opening of the circle was delayed slightly by filling some of the pit with the beer, and placing an ice throne in the center. The hare took the seat and gave himself the first baptism, ruining a shirt while awaiting his evaluations. The ratings were split. WIPOS, EverReady and KNOexpressed the kind of pleasure that is only felt after missing half of one of Bondo's trails. Dr WHO, Just Jake and Basket were still aching from the excessive pavement and figuratively pissed, spat and farted upon the hare to show their sentiments. TreeHouse had never seen a sand-and-gravel pit before, and so claimed to have enjoyed it immensely. The Humpermeister was still out playing flute with the orchestra while the ratings were made. Overall: +0.69.
Visitor in the circle was next. TreeHouse was asked three questions and as far as your scribe can tell, got them all wrong although he did in fact carry the square root of 69 out to 4 decimal places. He did his down down and sang the theme from "Gilligan's Island" (second season, minus the last verse). As he wore an Army t-shirt in deference to our fighting men overseas, his baptism was limited. To make up for this, hashit-in-perpetua Basket assumed his seat of ice. Naked but for a makeshift hashit loin-sock (this is a family neighborhood), he asked for nominations. No one could think of any crimes NOT committed by the hare, so the hashit remains in Glendale. His baptism was prolonged. Finally, faint with hunger they swung low and moved on to dinner, where the group was joined by Just Big Sh*t and Dogmeat (looking slightly flushed), and soon thereafter the Heiferhumper.
The barbecue was fired up, and spicy burgers, corn and salads were produced. Tours of the Bondo Brewery were given with samples of the real stuff given to those who were able to appear to be listening attentively to Bondo's endless stories about the difficulties of top-fermenting in a high humidity environment, and the proper calculation of the hop/wort index. A fine time was had by all, well worth the $5 that Bondo paid your scribe to come. (Oops! I wasn't supposed to tell.)
On On
The Slasher Dr W.H.O.