As the hashers arrived, fresh from their two-day turkey and leftovers binge, a buzz quickly permeated the Halfminds. At first I thought I was still in a Tryptophan-induced coma.  It had to be a dream.  There was a rumor that there were going to be Beer Nears on trail.  Was it true?  Could it be true?  It had been so long since any of us had seen one we thought they were extinct. 

AV spoke of the days from long ago when Beer Nears were as plentiful as Back Checks and YBFs.  He recounted how they were brought to extinction by marines in a military exercise that had gone horribly wrong.   3 Way Time insisted they never actually existed. They were just stories told by the Religious Advisor to keep money coming into the hash cash and to keep hashers on trail.  Elvis said he had seen one when he hashed in Siberia but he couldn’t get to it as a Big Foot had gotten to it first (and we all know Big Foots are angry drunks).  The rumor had spread so far so fast that More Legs and Porkless made the trip down from Dayton to see if it were true.

Repo opened the circle and Got Crabs? explained all the markings we would see on trail. We all waited anxiously to see a BN.  Check………Hash Mark……….Multi colored flour and tape……….Toilet paper…….As each successive mark was drawn and explained without the mention of a Beer Near, our hearts sank, our souls darkened and our hope faded.  Crabs finished up the chalk talk and started loading his sherpa (Flaming Pickle Licker) with flour and chalk.  The pack was starting to grumble when someone noticed that Y= Pi had quietly marked a BN in the middle of all the other marks.  The pack was euphoric but I stayed calm as I remembered Beer Nears promised but not given in the past.  

After the hares were off we introduced our visitors Pinoccular and Bitch Whisperer.  Then 3 Way (who was as close to a lawyer as we could find) led us in the legal disclaimer.  If our normal Legal Eagle were there he would have pointed out that she forgot to say, “Put your hand in and repeat after me”.  He also would have pointed out that she dangled a preposition and split an infinitive, but he was in Washington DC for Crap-o-con,  the convention for people who collect crap. I think the Keynote speaker was Oscar the Grouch.

The pack started walking at 9 minutes and reached the first Picture Check before they started running at 10.  It was in front of a sign advertising Hippy Hash. I would have thought Hippy Hash would be Pot but as it turns out it is actually a breakfast food that contains everything but pot. Go figure.  We followed trail behind the strip mall to the first Super Check. The pack dispersed like a dandelion in the wind until someone yelled On-On and the pack slowly funneled back together. 

The trail led into the woods where there was check after check after check.  I was keeping up until someone whistled true trail to the left after only two hash marks.  I don’t want to mention names but it rhymes with Ben Chicken.  As we worked our way through the labyrinth of bad trails, the pack started to notice the unmistakable stench of pre-lay. 

Just as the hashers were gathering pitchforks and torches to convert from pack to angry mob we heard angels in the distance.  The angels were singing a sweet song, “ Beeeeeeerrrrrrrrr Neeeeeaaaaaaarrrr”!!!  The pack bee-lined straight to the voice to see if it was true.  It was true!!!  There, in a nondescript plastic garbage bag, was Cheap, crappy, barely cold beer.  I think I saw Butt Digger cry.

Gas Hole pointed out how desperate the hares must be: a photo check, super check, prelaid trail and a beer near within the first mile of the hash spells fear!  Haring is like riding a bicycle, you never forget how, but Crabs evidently wasn’t taking any chances. We all agreed, then went back to drinking. By the time we pried NILF away from the last beer (who knew the Marines motto was no beer left behind) the pack was well ahead of us. 

When we finally made our way to the front of the pack (or as we like to call it Home) there was a huge up-hill, circle around and come back down to where you started, bit of hare trickery.  As it turns out there are two different types of slow.  Slow of foot and short bus slow. On this day I was short bus slow.  While the slow of foot took the direct route I took the up and around and eventually had to be whistled into the second beer near by Booty Call. 

Technically the Second beer near was a Schnapps near and Porkless was pushing the magical elixir like he was a wild west medicine man.  “Cures the cold, the tired and the halfminded.  Come get yer candy flavored alcohol.”  Not wanting to give up their lead, Booty Call and 3 Way left early and paralleled the creek on the road to save time. 

It was at that time the first discussion of who should get the crutch took place.  It was 3 way tie, or rather a tie between 3 Way for leaving early and skipping the creek and Fluffer for continuing down the railroad tracks even after he was whistled to the beer near.  Gourmet gets a pass because I don’t think he heard the whistles.  Hell I don’t even think he heard the train. 

The pack stayed pretty much together during this leg of the trail. Which may have been due to the check with 30 hashmarks going in all directions within a 40 square foot area. Seriously you could have baked a wedding cake with that much flour.  We knew we were on true trail when we heard Eats It moan a guttural obscenity.  When we turned the corner we all saw for ourselves the reason: it was the dreaded  “Field of Screams”.  It looked to be about 200 yards of thistles and sticker bushes. 

Eats It went through it like he was “born in dis here briar patch” and Blue tried to keep our spirits up by singing “Zip-i-dee-doo-dah”.    Well we all made it through but it wasn’t because of Uncle Remus; it was because we knew if it had been 10 degrees warmer we would all have been in short pants.  We almost lost QB as the bristles were taller than he was.  It was like a corn maze for him. Every once in a while someone would get up on a rock and shout “Just follow our voices QB”. 

We were rewarded at he end of the crossing with the third BN of the day.  There was much rejoicing and plenty of drinking before we headed out again.  We didn’t know it at the time but we were very close to the On-In.  Remember back to the second BN when there was a tie for the crutch.   Well 3 Way and her “my gloves are so bright they can be seen from space” was the first woman who finished and she was on the phone as she met up with the hares. Son of a Nun, anxious to get rid of the crutch, was nice enough to point this out to the RA. 

We had a split circle with part of it occurring at the end of trail and part at a bar up the road.  At the first circle the crimes and punishment went something like this.

The hares drank for shitty trail. 

The visitors Pinoccular and Bitch Whisperer told us how they got their names then sang us a song.

Everyone who ran in the competitive event on Thanksgiving drank.

The hares drank for no TURKEY/eagle split on a post thanksgiving hash.

3 Way got the crutch for the above-mentioned reasons.

Golden Showers finally got “The Worlds Shortest Hash Song” right.  Evidently 9^th time is the charm.

Blue and Hyper got “Ziggy Zaggy’d” for repeating “Shitty Trail”

Everyone was cold by now so we loaded 40 people into 4 cars and headed back to our cars to go to the second circle.

The second circle took a while to get started, as we had to wait through 4 overtimes of the UK game before we could get started.

All the latecomers drank including Una, Hyper, Hairless and his virgin (Kristy?). 

Pinoccular and Bitch Whisperer drank again for no damn good reason.  Pinnocular couldn’t come up with a song so he asked Elvis for help but we didn’t have a translator so he was on his own.

All bald guys drank and Hairless Balls led us with “Balls to Mr Banglestein”: good call on his part.

We sang Happy Birthday to Elvis (it was his birthday) and “Get Back in the Kitchen” to Una (she’s Una).

The virgin did a fine job of reading Analversaries making Son of a Nun’s attempt at the same for AV’s 400^th look even more pathetic.

There were some Dumb Ass Announcements and then AV ended the circle. 

If there are any mistakes or omissions please email me at writeityourdamnself@yahoo.com.