It was a joint Hogtown-Duuuuuhram celebration of Johnny’s favourite birthday. Phone Sex, for one, congratulated him on looking so good for 69. The rest of us just drank his beer.

The steady downpour all morning did not bode well for the trail. But just around 4:00 the hash gods smiled, the rain stopped and the pack could assemble. Our hare had arrived. The long gangrenous gash on Johnny’s leg was not reassuring, however. Perhaps Shadow had second thoughts as his taxi pulled up to the start, moments before the pack set out.

We crossed Kingston Road and looped through the cemetery, and then north of St. Clair and across Brimley. The pack got hung up at a school, before figuring out the trail went through the school grounds. Then, back south of Kingston Road, through some more suburban streets, another school, into the woods and eventually into Bluffer’s Park. So far, just about the same trail Johnny has set every other time for his 69th birthday, and it still fools us.

Then there was the slow, muddy climb up the hill to where the martini check awaited, the glasses sparkling tantalizingly in the pale sunshine. Johnny’s girls were serving apple, chocolate and “fruity” martinis, and there was much sampling of all three varieties. From there it was a short run to Johnny’s kids’ old school, where we had our beer check, probably right where Johnny’s kids used to drink their beers. After a while it looked like the rain was going to start up again, so it was time to head back to the on in.

Wet Pussy took on barbecue duties, waving his utensil at anybody who got too close before the burgers were done. There was much jockeying for position for a chance to sit in Johnny’s new hockey stick chair, and Moon Man wallowed in the pool, occasionally surfacing to clear his blow hole, and then wandered around in a towel. The rain pushed everybody inside, where more of the kids’ friends kept arriving, as well as non-hashing hashers like Ra and H2Ho. Pearl Necklace and Sweetcheeks.
Johnny, Rose Eh and Stuporman administered down downs; the guilty were cleansed, and transgressors were chastised.
Dinner and down downs done, we were serenaded by our very own Indigo Girls, the Hash Pipes, with their family-friendly renditions of Kumbaya, If I Had a Hammer, Joseph Rowed the Boat Ashore, etc. It was suggested that the 80-year-old neighbour would be offended, but how could innocent music like that bother anybody?

On Monday the 22nd, Shampoo set a short, tight trail in the east end. It started on Kingston Road near Vic Park and trended west through the Glen Stewart ravine, then reversed back through the ravine on the return leg to the beer check. Zephyr used his fancy iPhone thingy to prove that the trail was just over 4 kilometres long. One notable feature was the hare’s ability to pick both a beer check and an on in that did not serve pitchers.

On June 27, a small pack gathered in Bradford for Bobbit’s boat hash. Let’s see, there were Shampoo and Moist Leatherette, who came up with Dead End and National Pornographic. And Prince Valium and Doctor Zeus. With the hare, that made seven. He said the whole thing would take about three hours. Hey, a three-hour tour. “Puffin”, six letters, “Minnow”, er, six letters… Can’t mean anything… But why did Bobbit keep calling me “little buddy”…?

  First, the land-bound part. But in a part of the world called the Holland Marsh, “land” sometimes had a vague meaning. Setting out from a marina, the trail set out along some very flat fields, and after a while headed into the woods. Let’s not call it a swamp. Let’s just say it had a very high water table. Squelchy mud was always just barely beneath the surface. And then the mosquitoes came out: large, aggressive, persistent mosquitoes that could only be avoided by trying to outrun them. Which is what Dead End, Prince Valium, Natty Porn and Doctor Zeus did, while laggards Shampoo and Moist got to be eaten alive.

  The trail came out of the woods at the abandoned pickle factory, and then basically went up a straight, flat, boring road for a kilometre and then turned at a right angle along another straight, flat, boring road for a couple of clicks. But then we were at a second marina, and the Minnow, sorry, the Puffin was docked ready for us, most importantly with beer on board.

  Then we chugged quite delightfully along the Holland River, most of us going topside to drink beer and gaze dreamily into the middle distance. Or, as in Moist’s case, to topless sunbathe. One of the boat’s engines had conked out, so we proceeded at not much more than walking pace, enjoying the beautiful sunshine and repelling the occasional attack by Somali pirates. At least that’s what we kept yelling whenever another boat gained on us.

  After an hour and a bit we were back at our original marina, where it was time for burgers and hot dogs and a circle led by Shampoo. All in all, a delightful day: I also learned how to make a radio out of a coconut, but my scupper is hurting a bit and my bilge definitely needs more lubrication.