There was very bright fire and we sacrificed 2 virgins. Read on to learn what happened on this day.

Our hares were Dung Fu Grip, Chalking Hazard and Sloppy Swappy. Dung Fu Grip was a last minute replacement for Pink Cherry Licker – who was sick. 2 inexperienced hares and experienced fill in hare. What could go wrong?

First, I want to say the smartest hasher at this hash was Hareless. She gave up trail when she realized how long it had to be. I don’t know where she gave up, but I met her going the wrong way on Mission Street. There she gave some sort of direction of where it went to Natural Bridges drive and ended up on Delaware. So, I surmise she gave up somewhere around Delaware.

As bad trails go, this trail was not so bad. However, I do have it currently ranked as the worst trail of the year. The bar is not too low yet though. Dung Fu Grip was part of hares that got worst trail of year last year. Is he going for 2 years in a row?

A key element to a bad trail is getting a significant portion of pack lost, or at least nearly killing at least one person. While the virgins did not make it to the end, I presume that was due to fatigue, cold or possible hooking up (more on this conspiracy theory later). The part that made the trail bad was mostly the length. The hares promised 2.5 miles for the turkeys and 4 for the Eagles. I’m not sure how the hares measured this trail. I’m inclined to think it was with Pooh Sticks. For future hares here is a good suggestion – use your feet in combination with an electronic measuring device – like Strava.

While I don’t know how far the Turkeys went, some discussion was that it was significantly longer. Myself, Steamy Baanoreah and Just Haley all measured around 5.5 to the beer check for the Eagle. It was about 3/4 mile back to start, for a total of around 6.3 A challenging down hill in the dark also lead to a feeling of a bad trail.

As good trails go, this trail generally sucked. While there were plenty of marks, its distance and difficulty lead to it sucking. A long YBF didn’t help.

I gave the chalk talk to the virgins – Liz and Sebastian. Just Brock looked on to make sure he had not forgotten anything. Just Brock had made Virgin Sebastian come and amazingly, I made Virgin Liz come! I didn’t really this until I asked her who made her come, and she said “Apparently, it was you”. I had briefly met Liz at a run Monday night and convinced her to try us out.

Now, on to blow by blow description of what happened on trial. First, a map: (Currently the map is showing as HTML. Trying to fix it soon.)

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Circle up was in the parking lot of Mission West. We went through Mission West and encountered a promised Turkey/Eagle Split. I was with Virgin Liz and she said “Which one should I take?” I said she wanted to run, so I said she should take the Eagle. Perhaps this was a mistake. Virgin Sebastian was with Just Brock and they took the Turkey.

Now, I didn’t want Virgin Liz to get lost on her first hash, so I making sure I was staying close her. The first issue with the Eagle trail was a fence above the Arroyo Seco Canyon trail. There was a small opening, and the debate was whether you slither through, or had to climb it. First, Pawg patrol climbed it. Then, Junk Puncher, Virgin Liz and Just Halley slithered through. I tried to slither through, but decided it was not in the cards. So, climb I did. This is when I learned I am not as good at climbing fences as I used to be. It was perilous, but I made it over. This fence reminded of harriet who was named Fuck the Fence years ago for getting taught on with legs on either side of the fence.

From here it was a steep down hill to the canyon and an eventual return to the Turkey trail, about one block the Turkey/Eagle split. Around the corner, at Mission and Swift, the Eagles encountered a check that had flour kicked forward and a Timmy arrow to the right. Steamy Bahnoreah said “Timmy never gets it right”, and we proceeded forward. Several blocks later, myself, Just Liz, Steamy Bahnoreah, Pawg Patrol and Virgin Liz encounter a YBF. It was so far from the check and because two of the 3 hares were very inexperienced, most of us surmised it was really a back check. So, Steamy Bahnoreah and myself checked various possibilities. Virgin Liz watched us check – I think with amazement and trepidation. I can’t remember when Paug Patrol did. Apparently, Just Halley believed it as she disappeared into the night, not to be seen beer check.

With our tails between our legs, our group of Eagles returned to check and found someone had written YBF towards the YBF. I believe that was Just Halley. It was now a long slog down Mission street.

Not far down Mission, we encountered Just Brock and Virigin Sebastian. Just Liz decided to walk with them. She said she was hungry. I made sure she was OK and continued on trail. This was the last sighting of these 3 on trail. Virgin Sacrifice completed. Did Virgin Liz decide Virgin Sebastian and Just Brock were here best offerings and go from there? Or, was it cold/fatigue/hunger? Hopefully, one of these 3 will show their face in the future and we find out what their fate was.

Somewhere near the old Wriggly Building we encountered Hareless going the wrong direction with instructions on where trail went. She was abandoning ship. Trail went down Natural Bridges Dr, to the railroad tracks, then along Nearly Lagoon and finally to Delaware – which is the last location Hareless had told us about.

Trail went right on Delaware, which means the next section of trail was pretty much determined. Through the UCSC Coastal Science Campus, through the mobile home park, and down to Natural Bridges. I was with Pawg Patrol through this section. We passed Baby Y.O.D A and Rubricks Pube in Campus. We passed Broke Bench Mountain and 6 of 9 in the mobile home park.

Pawg Patrol and I had been curious about what happened to Just Halley and Pawg Patrol had tried to call her numerous times. In the mobile home park, she final reached her. Just Halley said “I’m with Puff and it’s treacherous”. We soon encountered treacherous, or the hill of death. In the dark, it rather just looked like a cliff with flour on it. Pawg Control went “Just Ollie is not going down that”. I did not plan to either. So, we took easier slope I knew about to the right.

As went down the hill into Natural Bridges, we could see the flames, 20 miles away, at the battery fire in Moss Landing. During everyone got emergency messages on their phones altering them that wind was not blowing our way and all was currently safe. However, be on the lookout for changing conditions.

From here, a cut through Natural Bridges State park, and a zig zag to Derby Park – not far from where the accursed earlier YBF had been. Here we learned Timmy had caught the hares when entering the mobile park. Where were the virgins? Eventually, Dung Fu Grip ran trail backwards. He did not encounter them or hear any cries from help. I heard from someone say that they saw Virgin Sebastian and Just Brock back at the bar. However, I was one of the first back and I did not see them.

The first down down was trying to figure out how the hares measured this trail. The rest, who cares?

On-On-On at Upper Crust Pizza. Numerous hashers attended, but it was a sausage fest.

Before I discuss the wonders of hash 1332, I need to write something I’ve wanted to write for a long time. That is, why I think even having a scribe is important and how I think it should work. First, I want to say Puff has been doing a great job, but it is not the job I personally envision. If you want to see some titles of old good hash trashes click here. Sadly, all the links there appear to no longer work, but you can get idea of what used to happen.

I do think that creating a good weekly hash trash is generally hard work. That’s because it is hard to say something new each week. Read on for how I think this can be solved.

Now, I want to discuss how the hash trash worked when I started hashing. No, not with Surf City, but with the Long Beach Hash. Before the internet. Before most people had email (I had it). Heck, a lot of people did not even have a computer. And, of course, some of you were not born. The Long Beach Hash weekly PRINTED a two page, 2 sided newsletter. The first thing there was the trash from the previous hash. When you arrived at a hash, one of the first things you did was pick up the hash trash and find out what someone thought about last weeks hash. If you didn’t show up, the trash would be sent via US Mail for the first 2 or 3 weeks you did not show up. Other than a writeup from the previous hash, the hash trash also contained where the next hash was, the hareline, announcements, and maybe some jokes (if there was space for it).

Hares were expected to recruit a scribe. Typically, when a hare started setting a trail, they would be asked who their scribe was. Often, hares and scribes swapped for each other. IOW, if you scribe for me when I am a hare, I will scribe for you when you are a hare. While this scenario would solve what I want – it is not what I propose. I propose the job of our hash scribe is to recruit scribes, upload what they have written to the web site, and harass anyone who says they will do and they do not. Scribing should be like haring – everyone should do it every once in a while. If you have to be the scribe once every 3 months, it should not be too big a deal. Funny is good, but a different voice (other than Puff!) is great. Trash’s just need to be original in my book. 

One of my favorite trash’s of all time went like this:. Step 1, wake up from hang over (the hash was on a Sunday morning) and look at clock. Step 2, look at last week’s hash trash and see who the hares were and where it was. Step 3, if the hares were the Bator Brothers (think of Dung Fu X2 and no Turkey trail) – go back to sleep or fuck the hasher you met last night one more time. This was all done with the aid of hand drawn pictures (no one had digital cameras).

Another favorite hash trash is one I wrote for a hash I did not attend! The year I was the On-Sec for Long Beach, my most prolific author was Doggie Style. She was very good 99% of time. One week she fucked up and didn’t get me the write-up before my deadline. So, I made something up and every third sentence was Fuck You Doggie Style. Most people appreciated my humor. However, I did get a pie in the face for it (I knew it was coming) and the person in charge of mailing the hash trash considered it pornography and tore off the cover page with the write up before sending it in the mail.

I printed that newsletter every week for a year. I got writeups in all sorts of ways. Hand written. Printed. On floppy disk. Rarely via email – because only a couple people had it. It was a lot of work putting it all together, but I didn’t have to be original, which I thought was harder. So, our hash scribe’s job would be a lot easier, as everyone has email. (However, no one has floppy disks!)  They wouldn’t have to print it, and getting it done by the next hash wouldn’t be a requirement. When I was printing newsletters each week, I believe I did do my fair share of scribing. So, the hash scribe likely would do this as well.

So, what do you think? Would everyone be willing to scribe periodically for the benefit of all? Or, are you you all just a bunch of lazy bastards and prefer to have Puff just do his thing?

–

Now, on to the glory of this week’s hash. It started at Woodhouse at Blending and Brewing. Was the small turn out due to last week’s AGM, the third hash in a row in the same area (trail went past portions the past 2 weeks trail), the recent cold weather, or fear of another dBASED haring? Take your pick.

Here’s a picture of last week’s hash as done by Steamy Baanoreah:

Highlights of trail: 

• Thru the Mission district and over the Highway 1 bridge
• Down the locust street steps
• Around City Hall
• Up Green street and to the other side of the mission
• Down the steep steps of the mission
• Down the river levy to the government center bridge (where Jersey Lunch Box caught the hares)
• Back up the river levy, across the pedestrian bridge next to highway 1.
• Once across the bridge, turkeys went into the parking lot and the beer check The Eagles did a loop in Harvey West which included the bike path, railroad tracks, a trek through the Costco parking lot, before returning back to the bike path. The Eagles once again caught up with dBASED a little bit before returning to the bike path and returning to the Turkey Trail.

Along the way, a homeless person swung at co-hare Courtesy Flush and missed. Courtesy Flush was worried about homeless people and their dogs accosting hashers, but this never happened, The first Turkey (Broke Bench) finished near when the first Eagles finished. The remaining Turkeys finished together and the remaining Eagle (Steamy Baanorhea) finished last.

And now the part you have been waiting for. The beginning of the reign as RA of dBASED.

Serving a second non consecutive term where previously I did not receive a majority of the vote and this time I did, I believe I have received a mandate from the hash. I will do what I have promised – give down downs to hounds without whistles and hares who do not cap their falses. I will reward those who are loyal to me by making them beer fairy and vilify my opponents, such as those who talk during region. Sadly, I cannot lower taxes.

I shall not abdicate my role as RA due to large crowds, haring, drunkenness, or general malaise as my predecessors have done. I shall attempt to repeat the motions of previous esteemed RA’s such as Butt Balls and Accuprick and perhaps even Banana Basher and Timmy!

As we began religion, I noticed everyone had formed a tight circle before I had even requested it. Surely my aura must be magnificent! Everyone was reminded to bring a whistle to future hashes or absorb my wrath. FRB and DFL were honored. I got a 1150 run patch. The hares were punished for being caught. 6 of 9 was honored not having his cohort (the homeless) attack hashers. 

Before the hash had started, I asked the Woodhouse how late the kitchen would be open. They told me 9:00. Sadly, even when we arrived at 8:30, it was closed. Timmy, Puff and 6 of 9 stayed to drink, others went out in the wilds of Santa Cruz in search of nourishment.

I know it’s been a while since the hash trash has been written.  There hasn’t been much to talk about. Until now. Pull up a chair.  This one is worth a read.

Normally when I hare, I set the agenda. I like teaching the new kids how to hare, show them the ropes.  I like to map trail, scout it, plan it out, stay organized. It’s work. Rarely do I get the chance to sit back, just show up, and run around throwing flour on some else’s trail.    So I see Timmy is signed up to hare all by his lonesome. I’m thinking, he’s nothing if not experienced. He’s gotta have his shit together, right? I’ll co-hare with him. It’ll be a good idea, right?

Timmy will be the top.  I’ll be the bottom. I just gotta show up.  It’ll be easy.

Commitments kept me from scouting the trail until the Tuesday before, but hey, not my problem. Timmy is going to scout around in the woods above campus.  Not an area I know, but I figure it’s a good time to learn. I show up at TImmy’s house 10 minutes late feeling quite confident that all will be taken care of.  He’s got a print out of a google map with trail marked out. And another copy for me. Clipboard. Pens. Everything is just reinforcing my preconceived idea that Timmy has his shit together.

Quick aside: I just saw this documentary on Netflix about the Flat Earthers.  They believe the world is flat, and whatever new information or evidence comes their way, they just hammer it into their crazy framework.  They remain confident and secure knowing they are right. Contrary evidence can be blithely swatted out of the way, batted down, and ignored   Denied. Belief overcoming knowledge. And I believed Timmy has his shit together.

Driving up to upper campus, I ask Timmy how many times he’s run trail.

“Three times.  But just in parts.  I haven’t run the whole thing yet.”

Huh.

He shows me where the split will be where I will run off and he’ll go the other way.  “Maybe let’s just stick together for now?” I say timidly. I’m really unfamiliar with this part of campus.

The sun is shining.  The air is crisp and warm.  It’s a beautiful day in the redwoods.  A reminder why Santa Cruz is amazing. Timmy is silent.  Timmy has stopped. Looking around. Not in a “soaking in the majesty of nature” way.  More puzzled than that.

“We made a wrong turn.”  he says. No matter. It’s a nice day.  A walk in the woods.

“This is really fucked up”  he says.  

“We can’t be here.” he says.

“Where are we?  This can’t be right.  Where are we?” he says.

Huh.

I suggest we backtrack.  “No, I have no time. Let’s go.  Take the road back to the parking lot.  I’ll scout trail tomorrow.” Timmy quips.  I notice some cracks in the facade of this well-groomed trail.  Wait…is there a facade on this well-groomed trail? Wait…I haven’t run trail yet.  There is no trail.

Timmy drives back to his house in silence, his gaze fixed on something beyond the horizon.  I bounce along in the passenger seat of his pick-up. I’m not sure if I should ask a question to give myself faith this is an aberration, or keep silent to let the few remaining shreds of faith in Timmy hang precariously.

  “I don’t know where trail is supposed to be.” I say plainly.

“Thursday.”  Timmy is formulating a plan.  An evolving plan. “Thursday. Can you show up early.  Maybe 3:30? We’ll run it Thursday.” Timmy’s tone does not instill faith.

I don’t know where trail is going.  But sure. Thursday. I agree.

The next day is Wednesday.

I get a text from Timmy.  “Got trail all set today, good to go.”  I’m not sure I believe it. But moving on.

Thursday.

I blow past the 3:30 arrival, show up closer to 4.  I stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up snacks for the pack, so I don’t feel bad for being late.  Timmy has the car packed and ready to go.

It is a good omen.

We drive up to campus. “So Timmy, how many times have you run trail now?”

“Ohh…” He pauses thoughtfully.  “Six or seven times.” Seems like enough, right?

Right?

We take off for the run a bit after 4 PM.  Plenty of time for a one hour trail run, drop off the BN cooler, and wait down in parking lot before 6 PM.

Right?

We run past the spot where I will split up from Timmy to lay a quick YBF.  Down the hill, to the side, you can’t get lost. I’ll dot it later. I keep with TImmy.

He points out some flour.  “I dropped just little patches of flour on the turns yesterday at the turns so we can find them later.  We can fill them in with big patches when we run live.” 

Sounds like good plan.  This time. Finally. The familiar parts of the trail go by quickly.  We drop the LC, bury it carefully to keep the mountain bikers away, and proceed down past a cool little structure that is set up like a shinto shrine with a few icons hanging down. 

“Fun little feature, we should draw people’s attention to it.” I suggest quite proud of my contribution to trail.

Timmy says he never noticed it before.  It’s huge and prominent, and completely escaped Timmy’s attention.  But he moves on like it’s no big deal. We pass some Christmas decorations in the trees. Timmy says he never noticed it before.  But he moves on like it’s no big deal.  

We get to the next fork in the trail.  TImmy looks left. Timmy looks right. Timmy looks left.  Timmy looks right. Timmy looks left.

No flour patches.

“No, this is wrong, we missed a turn.”  TImmy announces unnecessarily.

“We can’t be lost.  This shit is really fucked up.  This is really fucked.” Timmy mutters as I nod in agreement.

We start backtracking to the liquor check, stepping off the trail to let two shakey novice mountain bikers pass.

Hitting the liquor check, we retrace our path a bit then take the next left.  I’m not sure the liquor check is even on the trail. We go about one hundred yards when Timmy gets an idea.

“You wait here, I’ll go on ahead.”

Ok.  I stand there.  Timmy goes on ahead.  I remain just standing in the woods.  Alone. Standing in the forest.

I go through my pack to get my phone.  I downloaded the topographic maps to my hiking app to find out where we are.  I discover I left my cell phone in Timmy’s truck. And I’m just standing in the woods.  Alone.

Ignoring Timmy’s advice to stay in one place, I take off running down the trail.  I make a big loop, passing the same two mountain bikers, somewhat less shaky on their bikes.  I don’t know where trail is. I don’t know where Timmy is. I don’t know where I am. I guess at a turn, I run, I guess at a turn.  I run. I run past the shinto shrine. 

“Timmy!” I yell.  Nothing.

“Timmy” I yell.  “Courtesy Flush!”  I get a response. I run in that direction.  I’m breathing hard trying to run quickly to catch up.  My legs are pushing as fast as they can through the rough trail, occasionally stumbling, but pushing more.  Panting hard. I finally come across Timmy.

“I found trail!”  He looks at me, grinning.  He has a funny look on his face that prompts me look around for whatever the joke is.  A glance of my surrounding yields no clues, then my eyes return to TImmy and I scanned him up and down.  His forearm is hanging awkwardly as a trickle of blood ran down from his elbow to his wrist, the skin torn up in several spots indicating more of a skid than just a single point of contact with the earth/rocks/trees or whatever.  I stood silently waiting for him to acknowledge that he was, in fact, bleeding now, but was not when I first left him.

“So, I found trail, let’s go!” He takes off at his TImmy pace, in the same direction we’ve already been, passing the shinto shrine again.  I imagine he’s leaving drops of blood that will be tracked by investigators at some point.

“Timmy, if we get lost again, I think the Blair Witch will be summoned and start taking our teeth.”  I joke, realizing there is a greater probability that we will see the Blair Witch than we will complete the trail without getting lost again.

Passing the spot he was previously lost, with more certainty this time, we come across the same mountain bikers again.  I secretly hope they are lost too. I take notice that they are not bleeding like TImmy.

“Here it is, the Turkey Eagle split!”  It’s now after 5pm, over an hour into the hour long trail and we are just shy of the half-way point.

Timmy points out a few patches of flour as we make way down the trail.  Running late, but back on track, and we come to the road.

Timmy stops.  He looks behind him.

“I’m guessing we are lost.”  I say astutely.

“We missed a turn.”  Timmy says. I am aware that missing turns is what causes us to get lost.

Backtracking, we find the turn we missed.  We hustle along the trail, reach the far end of the Eagle trail, the half way point.  It’s 5:30. Timmy is the beer-meister and needs to be at the trough start at 6:00. It has taken an hour and a half to go halfway down the trail.  And I have very little faith we can do the rest of the trail without getting lost.

Miraculously, we do not get lost, even taking a shortcut back to the car bypassing the Turkey trail.  We haul a cooler for Beer Near into a grove and hide it. We bring the trough into the trough start at 6:15 like nothing ever happened.  A few of the early hashers run over and grab their beers, blissfully unaware that we spent more than two hours without laying a trail that we are about to attempt laying within an hour. 

“Hey Timmy are you bleeding?”  a particularly observant half-mind asks.

Timmy lifts up his elbow, for the first time acknowledging the obvious, grabs a napkin to wipe down his arm to make it somewhat more presentable.

Timmy gives trail instruction to the assembled pack without hinting that we’ve spent more time on trail lost than actually knowing where we.

“Please charge your phone”  I say waving a battery pack to the crowd.  “Please download the offline google maps, there is no reception.” I beseech the assembled mass of hashers who still have the misplaced faith that the hares can lay a trail to bring them safely out of the forest.

We head with our bags of flour to lay a trail we have not done yet sucessfully, Timmy and I split up for me to leave the initial YBF onto portion of the trail I have not yet seen.  I bound down the trail and come to a split, that I did not expect. Shit. Left probably. Meeting back up with Timmy, I leave extraordinary amounts of flour at every turn. On the Eagle split, I consult with the maps on my phone three different time to make sure I am not leading the pack astray.  I run short on flour as I arrange sticks scavenged from the forest floor into arrows. At Turkey-Eagle rejoin, I have the opportunity to shortcut, but instead I make a giant wooden arrow just to make sure the pack does not get lost. Of course, the Eagles catch me while I’m working.

Bounding off down the trail, I run into the middle of the Turkey pack at a check.  They ask me which way trial go.

“I have no fucking clue which way trail goes.  I have no fucking clue if Timmy is lost. I have no fucking clue where the pack is.  I have no fucking clue how many hashers are lost in woods. I have no fucking clue how many organs the police are going to find in the trees when the Blair Witch devours them.” 

None of the turkeys are listening to me.  Someone calls “on-on”, and I take off jogging in the middle of the pack I’m supposed to be leading.  

At liquor check at the barrels, I wait for the DFLs, assuming at a minimum I’ll be able to hear their screams as the Blair Witch devours their souls. up

Finally heading back in with the last of the walkers, we stagger into the grove where Beer Near is.  Timmy hands me beer.

“Anyone lost?”  I ask not really wanting to know the answer.

“Everyone is here except Puff.  He’ll be in whenever.” Timmy grins.   “We finally got the trail right. See, I told you everything was gonna work out just fine.” 

I have two small semi-unique memories of Pearl Necklace.

The first was my 40^th birthday party in 2001 where he appeared as couple for the first time (to me) with Last Call Norm.

The second was a story of him haring with Banana Basher. Banana told him to set a false up some street – which would typically be around a block. Instead, he went many, many blocks. And, as they say, that’s when the trouble started (that day).