Salutations Kennel Mates,

This will be Puff’s last communique with you, as a group anyway, hopefully for quite a while. I have been deposed as Scribe though it’s obvious why I was replaced by persons far younger as well as far more intelligent than myself. I am not aware of what promises  were made to you but I guarantee they cannot live up to your fantasies. Be that as it may, in Puff’s continuing war on mediocrity, I wish to unleash some final thoughts on you pertaining to hashing in general and you jokers in particular.

The Hash is almost an Invisible Empire. Going through our existence unnoticed at best and ignored at worst, at least for the most part, emboldens us to be brazen. With the advent of the Internet though we can no longer claim to be Underground. I decry this commercialization, it threatens to reduce Hashing from what it SHOULD be, a subversive cultural force, to a mass-produced tranquilizing commodity. Sometimes I am numbed by the quantity of Hash-related material available to the mortal members of the general populace. We got more friggin’ outlets that Starbuck’s.

While I have thankfully met very few Hashers I consider truly dangerous or alarmingly sadistic, by the same token we give precious little thought to crossing a field, obviously someone’s private property; coercing the clan to cross a busy highway, stumbling across cross ties or the fording of a fast-moving stream…in the dark…during a pouring rain storm…with 25 mile an hour wind gusts…with the thermometer barely above fifty degrees…while the half-mind behind you yells: Ain’t this great?! If I wasn’t afraid to cease my forward progress, (I swear I just saw a shark fin pass by) I’d stop and take the time to wring his scrawny neck.

On my worst day I can always look forward to the week’s trail. Over the years, I have derided a number of my kennel mates, or more specifically, their trails. As a matter of fact, Puff now has more enemies than some small countries have people. Honestly though, I refuse to believe anyone purposely lays a poor trail, the fact I’ve been accused of that myself a number of times notwithstanding.

Even though Hashing began over eighty-five years ago, an obviously much simpler time, it has evolved into serving a far more vital function these days. Our brains fill the huge gap in our knowledge and understanding of the universe with myths and delusions in order to create a world through which we can navigate, one in which we feel secure. What most people refer to as “Reality” is merely our over-matched minds attempting to make sense of a universe far too complex for it to understand. As life gets more and more complicated, we invent ways to deny it’s complexity and make it simpler. Enter the Hash.

When I began Hashing, I anticipated meeting a varied cross-section of Santa Cruzans but all would share the common traits of intelligence, thoughtfulness and honesty. This soon proved to be a false hope. Almost all the hashers I’ve encountered are serious losers. They’ve clearly failed at almost every endeavor they ever undertook. They failed manning a gas pump, failed selling stale popcorn in a movie house, failed at helping an in-law install PVC piping in low-end apartment buildings. They were unable to successfully commit even the most petty of criminal acts, failed collecting trash, doing yard work. Unsuccessful in school, employment and marriages alike and now they continue this pattern failing as both hare and hound. Isn’t this a major part of the attraction of Hashing though? No matter how pathetic an excuse you are for a human being, pay Hash Cash and you’re accepted as a Member-In-Good-Standing of a worldwide club of others who too have failed to measure up or to possess even a modicum of redeeming social value or salvaging virtues whatsoever.

Hashing is a rational response to reality. There is a relentless Darwinian Factor present in Hashing. This is why we need recruits, a constant infusion of new blood. Occasionally, the Surf City gene pool requires a liberal application of chlorine. If Surf City is a supermarket of Hashers, we need a cleanup on aisle three. In a bare bones explanation, Hashing is suicide for people that do not wish to kill themselves. We attend the School of Hard Knocks at each Hash, always as a student and sometimes as teacher. One measure of how much you’ve grown as a human, emotionally speaking, is how much you wince as you look back over your life. I’ve seen wistful expressions on many a kennel mate at on-on-on this past year.

While this may make it sound the life of a hasher is dreary and morose, there is tremendous advantage to joining the club of Hashdom.  Allow me to present evidence to support this assertion.

Admit it, sometime along trail, at least once and most likely multiple times, you have thought you damn well may die. Even if you are a dedicated, steadfast Walker or Turkey, you’ve taken on the Grim Reaper. You may have been crossing a street in the dark and suddenly realized, YIKES! I just crossed that street without looking for traffic, I could have woken up dead tomorrow! If you’re one of the half-minds that begs for extinction by challenging the Eagle or Ball Buster Trail, well, I need not remind you of the chances YOU have taken.  The “If-the-hare-laid-it-I-can-Hash-it philosophy may well prove to be the cause of your untimely demise. Who knows what devious tricks the hare pulled? Prelay? The hare went around that deep gulch yesterday to make you think you should scale the cliff and cross it because it appears he did? He carried a rope to get him over that ditch? A second hare approached that slippery, moss-covered fallen tree across that chasm from the other side? Who knows, this day in time devious hares may even employ drones to assist them dropping flour.

Though it may sound that I am advising you to cease Hashing, that is far from my intent. Allow me to impress upon you how important it is that you continue struggling along trail.

Mortals do not experience life as do we. Most mortals will never have a brush with death, never come face to face with their own mortality. They will not learn how fragile life is, how truly important and vital each moment is. They will live a life unlived. Consequently, their lives will never come into focus. They will spend their days drifting aimlessly, moving from job to job, place to place, never seizing the opportunities that will present themselves. They will  learn to…play…it…safe. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., a well-respected Supreme Court jurist, once said, “I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the action and passion of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.” Apologies to the harriettes out there for the male-only reference, the early twentieth century was a very sexist time. The above quote, however, is obviously applicable to you as well.

It is not the naysayer, the person who points out you have stumbled or fallen along trail or tells you that you took too long to complete that trail, not the person who says: Just look at you, covered in mud and dirt, blood down both legs. Nay, I say, the credit belongs to those that entered the arena, the ones that strove valiantly though it took many attempts to get up that rocky hillside or cross that stream; the ones who, through enthusiasm and devotion, and possibly just some pure dumb luck as well, finally crawl into Beer Check for you cannot know success without knowing failure as well. There is no effort without shortcomings. Even if one fails to make Beer Check, take solace knowing your place in this world will never be with those cold and timid souls who will know neither victory nor defeat. We are the blessed ones that at some point in time, experienced that moment of ultimate illumination, the epiphany that lit the path we would follow for the rest of our days.

Being a Hasher is somewhat paradoxical though. There’s nothing we enjoy more than telling people about the Hash but we are instantly wary of anyone that listens and seems interested.

I apologize in advance for the following departure from the matter at hand, a slight digression if you will, but it does pertain specifically to the Surf City Hash House Harriers.

Many of you have heard of Predictive Policing, which is the use of time, locations and the nature of PREVIOUS crimes to provide insight into possible FUTURE crimes. Some of you misanthropes may have actually fallen prey to it. I find myself unable to characterize you as a ‘victim’ in this matter. What is little known is that one of the major sites of development of this policing tool was right here in Santa Cruz. And, to bring it even closer to home, Surf City H3 was instrumental in it’s inception. In 2008, the Los Angeles Police Department began noticing trends and similarities between certain infractions of the law. Working with the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National Institute of Justice, the concept of Predictive Policing was formulated. In 2010, these researchers published a paper outlining their findings and presenting the evidence that such prognostication was possible. This paper became known to our then-Chief of Police, Kevin Vogel. Chief Vogel had heard his officers mention a group of persons that were skirting around the edges of criminal acts but were mostly innocuous and, sadly, pathetically incompetent as well. Enter the Surf City Hash House Harriers. He had heard of and actually chuckled at a few of their antics. Around the Station, this group became colloquially referred to as The Thursday Night People. Being a true leader though, he implored his officers: Keep a sharp eye on them, those jokers bear watching! Owing to these encounters, the Chief formulated a plan. Chief Vogel contacted Dr. George Mohler at Santa Clara University and presented the crime history he had. By 2010, the Chief, via stories related to him by his officers on the street, had a decade of misdeeds and missteps perpetrated by Surf City H3. The doctor said that the stories presented to him would be sufficient for him to formulate a mathematical model, that’s an algorithm to you smart people, that may prove beneficial for policing practices. With some fine tuning and correcting ‘bugs’ in the programming, our local constabulary was able to accurately predict where the pack would ‘strike’ next much of the time. Many of us have been at Religion when a black and white pulled up and the person inside said: My patrol brings me back by here in 15 minutes, you won’t be here then, will you? No, Sir! And thank you, sir! Soon, the program was expanded to encompass those that do bad things to OTHER people, not just persons making complete asses of themselves on a weekly basis. In November 2011, Time Magazine named Predictive Policing one of The Greatest Inventions of 2011. Chief Vogel said the recognition was appreciated but the end result, that being the reduction of crime in Santa Cruz, was far more satisfying than any accolades. A few of the officers I’ve conversed with over the years, and, much to my dismay there’s been quite a few, said more than once they witnessed Chief Vogel privately and quietly mouth the words: Thank you, Thursday Night People.

As I said, apologies for the digression but I felt many of you would wish to know you participated in at least ONE good deed before you pass.

This seems an appropriate place to inject some observations I have made over the years with my visits to drinking establishments in many States as well as a few foreign countries.

There is no such thing as the Perfect Martini.

A couple married for many years can come in a bar arguing. However, after two shots of tequila hold each other for dear life on the dance floor just as they did in high school.

A woman doesn’t notice her date’s drink order as much as she does how he treats the waitperson.

Above all else, a woman wants kindness.

Even with nothing to gain, some people can be small and mean.

I remember a woman that came in my then-current watering hole every Friday, nicely attired, probably just off from work. She would never be a beauty contest contestant if you understand my meaning. Two drinks and she was gone. Came in alone and left that way as well. Spoke with no one except the bartender and even that interaction was kept to a minimum. I’m certain she had an achingly beautiful story to tell but it would never be told. No one would ever ask.

The Mexican busboy with bad skin also probably had one to tell. It, too, would never be told.

Every Saturday night around 11 a cab would pull up out front and park in a red zone. The driver would get out, come in and order a double cheese burger and fries to go. After the second Saturday the bartender would place the order upon seeing him arrive. After that, the cabbie never spoke again, never made eye contact. He’d pay with a twenty, wave away the change. Left without a word. From him I learned some people just cannot be reached and it’s impossible to imagine all the damage that has been done.

Tales must be told and retold, otherwise the memories begin to slowly die, time dulls the sharp corners and removes the edges, dust obscures the glory of the story. Stories can be read simply as misadventures or they can be taken as inspiration, extraordinary acts by ordinary people. There are probably young Hashers out there that have read our Trashes and thought they were rather dull. But one day these same young pups will be old hounds conquering trails just like those hashed in the last millennium. Their Scribe will then pen similar Trashes and they will love them! You may detest your Scribe, that lying son-of-a-bitch, but you will enjoy their words.

This is the third time in world history a rare moment of clarity and lucidity has infested Surf City H3 and the goose quill has been wrenched from Puff’s palsied paw. Thank you! I now have regained control of my Saturday afternoon. I wish nothing but the best for the Scribes that are to follow me. However, if those hallowed few think I was mean to them when scribing reviews of their treacherous trails that were filled with terror and tedium, wait till they get an eyeful of the cheap, uncalled-for pot shots I will take at them after they transition to Scribe. Via this magnum opus, I will share with them the three goals I always had in mind as I concocted my weekly lies. One, simply as a record of the week’s Trail for our posterity. Secondly, to let those that did not attend know what they missed in hopes it will convince them to rejoin their brother and sister hashers again soon. Lastly, I made every effort to provide a chuckle to my kennel mates. Allow Puff to bequeath you a small piece of the wisdom I have garnered in my seventy-plus years: I’ve found that life is not always fun. One thing is both indifferent to human lives and inescapable as well. It is time. Life is brief and time but a thief. It steals from us our youth followed by our physical abilities and mental capacities, our friends and lastly, our very selves. All those places, all those faces; all the places we’ve been and all the faces we’ve seen fade eventually. Time will change us but we cannot change time. Life is short. Death is forever. We’ve lost eleven kennel mates in twenty-three years, each loss compounding the pain from the previous one. So, when Scribing, if I could lessen someone’s pain, even if only for a few minutes, I felt I had made a worthwhile contribution.

I should name those that have left us, they are never truly gone from our midst as long as there’s someone that remembers them. I have memorial snapshots of them all, forever indelibly etched in my memory. In my mind, I’ve kept them frozen as they were the last time I saw them as they passed me on trail. Those that have joined that great Circleup in the Sky are: I Sell Dope, this man had an uncanny calming effect on those around him; ‘Possum Pussy, a intelligence and sense of humor almost beyond our capability to comprehend; Piss ‘n Booths, club philosopher, originator of the Bum Wine Check and notorious for laying trails requiring hounds to carry a map of Santa Cruz County and cab fare; Foul Balls, when I think back on him the first thing that comes to mind is “Have a Miller!”; Last Call Norm, highly successful at sports, business and child-rearing, as GM she pointed the club towards sponsoring WomenCare, which, ironically, would be the organization that would shepherd her exit from our plane of existence; Pussy Sipper, watch this man nurse his beer like it was the last one in existence and you’ll instantly know how he earned his Hash name; Daddy War Bucks, loud-and-proud Libertarian, the old adage, “Still waters run deep”, may have been concocted with just this man in mind; Pearl Necklace, never caught without a ready joke or a proper insult when he served as our Religious Adviser. He was also intelligent enough to ask for the hand of Last Call Norm in matrimony. Pussy Toupe, most of you will not have met him, he only did two hashes with us. You will, however, appreciate the function he performed when not with us: Quality Control Manager for Gordon Biersch Brewery! He presented us with a small keg when he graced us with his presence. As if this is not enough, this man was intelligent enough to ask for the hand of our very own Pixilated Obscenity in marriage. She accepted. If you’ve met her, you know what a good woman she is and therefore by extension, what a good man he was as well. Real Boring Bitch, the deeds perpetrated by this man while at the hash pale in comparison to the truly good deeds he performed in his mortal guise. He made significant donations of his time and effort to those less fortunate than ourselves. Makes you wonder what attracted him to hashing! Wicked Retahted, the name pretty much makes the case! From Coors Light(on ice!) to forgetting to bring the joint he rolled ten minutes before leaving for the Hash, this man epitomized the half-mind. Example, I remember one time he was given the Hashit and told to find something to add to it along trail. During Religion he was called up and asked what he had found. He reached in his pocket and withdrew a small, round rock and said, I found this rock!

There’s more to Scribing than the recording and chronicling of events. Once Scribe commits these occurrences to computer memory they become fixed. They transition to a fixed entity. A marker. A road sign. These musings become a reality distanced from the realm of it’s original creation. Everything changes once Scribe commits their personal version of a Hash to our memory bank. It becomes the collective memory of Surf City. Sadly, it is not always accurate!

Some final sentiments pertaining to Scribing. It’s all about those squiggly little lines we’ve concocted, the alphabet. They stand for sounds. We put those sounds together and we assemble words. These words become color and light. When we connect words, we assemble entire worlds. The Trash is a repository, a resting place if you will, of the deeds and (frequently) the misdeeds of the Surf City H3. It is the collective memory of those that have come before us recorded for those that will come after us, a place for our memories to stay in one place after our souls have traveled on.

I truly hope someone lifts the banner of Scribedom when I reluctantly relinquish it. We Scribes are not to be journalists but novelists; we are to take you out of your singular life and move you into that of the pack. We’re a subversive lot! Tradition in an integral component of Hashdom. The Hash Trash is time consuming but rewarding on many levels. If there is no record of our weekly adventures, our memories die a second death.

Signing off, now go away and leave me the hell alone.

On-out,

Puff the Magic Drag Queen

Surf City H3 Scribe (Ret.)