Greetings,

In this case they may not be especially pleasant ones though. For our five-hundred and ninetieth gathering, we happily assembled our traveling kennel next to the bocci balls courts behind Bocci’s Cellar but unhappily remembered Banana Basher was our quarry this evening.

Let’s ignore His Bulkiness as long as possible and discuss other matters. Broke Bench Mountain brought us a new playmate, Virgin Mary. (I kid you not) Just to avoid any unpleasant scenes in the future, she’s married, harriers. Six of Nine, who now has the corporate headquarters of his expanding business just around the corner from Bocci’s, made the jaunt to join us. More about his half-mindedness later. Also, making her very first visit for this summer, was Nice,But. She has not graced us with her presence this year yet and we now know why, she is in possession of a significant other. This gentleman’s name is Navigator and he has navigated his way to us from down-under, New Zealand to be exact. He proved to be a worthwhile bloke…for a Kiwi that is. Silicon Valley H3’s Bloodweiser crossed the hill to join us as well.

While we’ve been visiting Banana has been presenting a defense for his trail. Why wait till everyone is pissed-off at you, try and preempt their anger by preparing them for your failure as a hare. This time his excuse was stellar though, I give him credit for originality. The big Banana claims to have been physically attacked by a resident of Pogonip, commonly referred to as “homeless” and/or “drug dealer”. Banana says he was smacked in the face by a two-by-four. Now we all know Banana is hard-headed but I took note of no marks whatsoever on his face where he claims to have been beaten. I’ve also noticed there has been no report of this tragic encounter in Cops & Courts section of our local newspaper, the Senile. I believe you’re capable of forming your own opinion pertaining to Banana’s (supposed) victimization.

Anyway, after getting a few good laughs from Banana’s version of Instructions of Trail, everyone has returned to drinking. That is except for TIMMY who has just witnessed Virgin Mary send his martini glass crashing to the concrete. After replacing his drink for him, Vince Lamblowme decides it would be best to put some distance between Mary and alcohol so he drags her off to the side and give her a good talking to. I mean the proverbial Chalk Talk, not the kind Vince frequently receives from Mrs. Lamblowme.

With Banana absent circleup was short and concise. Introductions completed, trail went up Encinal, crossed the tracks and turned on-left on Limekiln Street. The first check, such as it was, was found where Limekiln ends at Coral Street. I say “such as it was” because Banana chose this hash to experiment with new trail marker. Rather than using the tried-and-true flour for marker he thought sugar would prove a superior substitute. He was wrong. Again. As usual.

Sweet trail was found proceeding on Coral to the intersection with Harvey West Boulevard. Trail turned on-right onto Harvey West and proceeded until heading on-left through Harvey West Park, through the parking lot and entering Wagner Grove. If you’ve been through Wager Grove and on-up to Meadow Road, you know what traversing this terrain encompasses. If you’ve not been through here yet, I’ll spare you the grisly details as I do not wish to scare you. Let it sufficed to say it’s a hard and harrowing climb.

Once on Meadow, we traversed until reaching Spring Street where it was both sadly and painfully obvious an on-right and on-up was our destination. Once there was no more pavement for us to pound, we found flour taking us into the wilds of Pogonip via Spring Trail. Mercifully, the hare chose the first on-right, Lookout Trail, for us rather than continuing further along what is a long Spring Trail. However, Lookout Trail is appropriately named due to it’s treacherous, twisting on-down all the way to Dubois Street beside Harvey West Park and it’s liberal sprinkling of poison oak, most of which is too small to be seen until it’s too late. These are colloquially referred to as “ankle nibblers”.

Once back to civilization on Dubois Street, a solved check pointed the pod on-left and once across Encinal Street, Beer Check was found in the back parking lot of one of the numerous office buildings, many of which are sadly vacant, that populate another of Santa Cruz’s failed attempt at an industrial park.

On-in was but a short jaunt back to the end of Pioneer Street but upon arriving there we found a street rage party in progress. Foolishly, Six of Nine volunteered the grounds of his corporate headquarters, AKA The Slums, which is just around the corner from Pioneer. Once there, Choka-cola was elected Mob-rule Religious Adviser and in what TIMMY termed “The worst example of nepotism I’ve seen since JFK made his brother Bobby Attorney General”, Choka appointed (current) consort Hairy Potter her Beer Fairy. Here are a few of the stupid things perpetrated by Choka this evening: Six punished for foolishly volunteering the site for Religion, TIMMY and Vince jointly because the former hates beer and the latter drinks nothing but PBR; Navigator as a visitor from New Zealand; Nice,But as an extreme backslider; dBASED for becoming lost on trail (what’s so amazing about THAT?!?) and Hot Wheels for being tonight’s FRB. Oh, yeah. The accursed hare. When I finally stumbled into Beer Check, I could tell Banana was happy to have survive this demanding trail by the smile on his face. He simply looked post-coital. By the time he left Beer Check, he had become so incapacitated by drink  that he was reduced to a cross between a child and a vegetable. When summoned to the altar he thanked the Pabst Brewing Company for making his alcoholism sound like just a hobby.

On-on-on was, and no surprise here, back at Bocci’s Cellar where a lustful Banana Basher promised beertendress Alicia we would have a special honorary hash on a Monday or Tuesday so she can attend.

By Special Appointment of His Royal Majesty “G”, this Hash Trash has been compiled and printed by permission of no one other than the author at Santa Cruz, Ca., or elsewhere if need be, on this, the ninth day of August in the year of our hash two-thousand eleven.

On-out,

Puff the Magic Drag Queen