Tale of the Trail – Chicago Hash #1528
The word for the day was bitter. Bitter cold (11 degrees ambient at chalk talk, negative double digits wind chill) and a heartbreaking Packer loss at Lambeau last Sunday. Just three hashes into the 2008 season It’s Too Soft is already front-runner in the race for for Worst Trail of 2008 thus proving without a shadow of a doubt that even a weather-shortend trail can still be a very sh!tty trail.
All started off well for the hash as the bar, The Spot provided each hasher two free Bitburger beers and $2 drafts for the hash. After a fast chalk talk, the weather-impacted pack led by front runners Virtually Hung and Calvin Klein headed North up the alley behind the bar eventually found themselves in a classic Fuji figure eight centered around the intersection of Clarendon and Sheridan. At that point what could go wrong went wrong as Virtual, Just I Lean and pretty much the rest of the pack except for Calvin and Just Jonathan (probably pissed about the figure eight ins subzero weather) started ranging and picked up the on-in trail by Weiss Memorial Hospital which became a defacto inadvertent Turkey/Eagle split where 3/4 of the pack shortcutted 1/3 of the trail in the park. However given the bone-chilling 20 below zero wind chills that day, for some odd reason many hashers didn’t seem to mind missing some trail.
Now the real trail went into Clarendon park and the under Lakeshore Drive at Montrose into Montrose Beach park and to the top of that huge mound where there was a check. A very nasty check as you pretty much had to run all around the base of the Mound find trail and now there were only three hashers to try and solve checks designed for the full pack. From there it went North to the parking lot by the skate park where there was another check which led back under Lakeshore Drive via Wilson Avenue, eventually heading West on Wilson to the Aragon Ballroom where there was a gratuitous check (mark but nowhere to go except continue on Wilson to Broadway where there was the last check in front of the Green Mill, and then back to the bar.
Once back at the bar, the hare was administered a veritable tsunami of down downs for what will likely be remembered as the Worst Trail of 2008 and probably cementing his lock on the 2007 Worst Trail award too as the aftershocks from this debacle spillover Katrina-like into the 2007 balloting.
The $2 drafts were Leinie’s Red in full pint glasses so special dispensation was granted for down downs so you only had to drink part of your pint. Runners included Super Stuff’her, Magnetic Muff, Uploader, Just Rob, as well as Are They Real who was the only smart person there and stayed in the bar instead of running extrememly cold crappy trail. We were later joined by GM Chicken Stiffer just back from some Cinci thing and Just Alex as well a few others.
After the hash crime down downs were administered the pack set to seeing how many pints we could consume before our special ended and I think we put away at least 50 in the last hour or so before the game. Just before game time Just Jonathan was named something I don’t recall and at the end of the game Calvin caught up on his beaty sleep as the Giants rallied to win it in OT over our Green Bay Packers. The ghost of Vince Lombardi is probably at this very moment repeatedly sticking a large hat pin into an It’s Too Soft voodoo doll because the amount of bad karma reeking into the upper atmosphere from Sunday’s trail probably rained down on Lambeau Field, contributing to the Packer’s loss later that day.
Now the Pack ain’t in it but still our thoughts turn to the big dance, Super Bowl XLII when will also have our annual Super Bowl hash, unlike the NFL we haven’t worked out yet where or by whom. Stay tuned as there’s talk of a post-hash Super Bowl commercial watching party which is likely to be frequently interrupted by a some sort of game involving very large men running into each other at unsafe velocities and among other things, a strange-looking ball.
Despite the outcome of the game and Category Five Bad Trail earlier, the day was not a total loss as we now have a new hash bar where the owner and staff finds that hash very entertaining, in Uptown of all places called The Spot. Heck, one ouf of three ain’t bad.
Party on on,
It’s Too Soft
Consigliere, Hash Flash, Web Dude and Chief Sarcasm Officer
Chicago HHH