There was a good turnout for the Monday run on Simcoe Day, August 3. Obviously many of us have nothing better to do on a long weekend than be abused by Rose Eh: Ra, for instance, showed his face after a long while, as well as Nadia Cumineatme.

The venue was the humble abode of National Pornographic, apparently the “go-to girl” of the Hogtown hash, considering she was also involved in setting the Hogan’sTWAT on Thursday. And I must say the heavily bandaged knees were most alluring.

The out trail began, interestingly enough, with the same marks as the in trail. But no matter, things were soon enough sorted out, especially since Natty was usually blowing through her own checks and yelling “On on” at the front of the pack. On the other hand, the pack seemed more than usually sluggish. And eager to stop for puppies, too. The trail went through beautiful downtown (?) Swansea, then through a park with a swampy pond in the middle of it and up to the road above, where we enjoyed a shooter check that Natty seems to have concocted out of Crème de Menthe, battery acid and Hawaiian Punch, strained through a car radiator.

The trail then headed down as far as the Queensway and then turned into High Park. Some time was lost there with a circle jerk around the old house in the park that the hare seemed to have forgotten all about, and then there were a few more missteps at several other places while Natty tried to remember just where she had set the trail. Eventually we made our way up to Bloor, and a few blocks west of the park finally into a bar for the beer check.

After that a short, even slower walk back to Natty’s. Punishment was swift and certain as Rose Eh meted out down downs. I mean, she got me because I gyrated a bit when Natty bent down in front of me during trail talk to demonstrate how she had “marked upright surfaces”. Is it my fault the woman’s eyes were drawn to the nearest solid object? But the indiscriminate down downs didn’t seem to matter to Dead End, who continued to make eyes at Natty’s elderly neighbour – obviously a well established man of property. An attempt was made to name Just Angela (fortunately cooler heads vetoed “Fucking Half Wit”) but this was deferred until another occasion and a more obvious faux pas on her part.

Then Rose Eh left. Then we had a delicious barbecue. And then we let the poor woman recover.

Of course, Zephyr could tell you all about the run through his obsessive record-keeping. Duration of run 1 hour, 31 minutes, 58 seconds; total distance 4.3 miles; average speed, elevation climbed and descended and all that. To think that it has come to this: memory, imagination, artistry replaced by a soulless, faceless robotic automaton recording data with chill, machine-mind precision. And his little iPhone, too.