Ah, the real story of the original Anthrax Hash needs to be told.
Yes, it started at the Hidden Shamrock with many, many hashers, including a slew of visitors from Waukesha, on a cold (very friggin cold) Sunday afternoon. Twas a couple of nights before Christmas and all through the bar, hashers were stirring and wondering what the hell had happened to the hare (alias Its Too Soft)!! Twas to begin at 3:00 (hash time 3:30) yet by 3:45 not creature was stirring, nor a hare to be found. Then bursting through the door ITS made an entrance, his bicycle well secured!! And off the pack went – howling with glee.
Many cold (did I mention that it was REALLY cold?), many, many cold miles (and about an hour and a half) later we finally stumbled exhausted into ITS abode for a most well deserved brew. Through the muttering and cursing we filtered the beer through our frozen lips. Ah, but at least it twas almost over. On, on, Dancer, Prancer, Mudsucker, Good Swallow, Virtually Hung and a host of others! And on… and on…. and on… til the better reason struck us and we realized that the marathon would never end. So to the bar we short-cutted, bypassing the long, cold jog through Lincoln Park (which probably included a swim in the icy lake)…
An evening to remember, the hare escaped with his scalp in spite of our efforts (we were too cold to snag him, and he was so spry since he had laid much of the trail by bicycle dropping huge piles of white flour on the ground). And he went blissfully on his way with sugar plums in his dreams.
But…..
Twas two days later when an alert zoo worker saw the piles of white powder, which due to their huge size had not blow away over the two days since the hash, and realized that the terrorists were a-coming. The brave firemen in their cool (and expensive) bio suits arrived, tested the pile, and lo and behold, twas positive for anthax. Alerts, and hollers and over a hundred firemen beat feet to the site, and another hundred of their police brethren also raced to the site of the crime. Milling around, and, well not exactly caroling…
Then I, the innocent GM over the horde, received a call from Necrophiliac, a Sun Times reporter noting that Lincoln Park was closed down and he was on site doing his reporting thing. Said he, there is an Anthrax situation and lo and behold it was where the hash supposedly ran (of course, no one ran the last leg after the beer stop except for Virtually Hung). And the cops wanted two people to verify that it was flour before they called off the alert (200 cops and firemen on overtime!!)…
ITS was waiting for a plane and he faxed a map from the OHare fire station (per his pic).
Virtual was picked up by the cops, sirens wailing and tires squealing, as he anticipated that his career as a high flouting lawyer was about to come to an end…
Ah, it was over… or was it? Then Necrophiliac called to say that the fire dept wanted $88,000 for the costs from the “running club responsible for this scare”. We did have about $85 in the hash cash kitty, so I stopped by my tailor to get fitted for Prison Orange!! Rather fashionable, I must declare!
How did it happen, you ask? (don’t care if you didn’t ask – it’s my story!!). Add the hare throwing large globs of white flour onto the ground from a bike to firemen that never calibrated their new detectors near a zoo (animals have low levels of anthrax) and that was the recipe for the debacle.
Alas, the firemen rejoined their families, the cops returned to their donuts (Mount Me – just had to throw that in!), I returned my orange suit, Virtual’s peers never saw him on TV, ITS flew into the sunset and the hash cash kitty remained overflowing with its $85, and the denizens of Lincoln Park returned to their cages – the animals too!
Many calls and emails from the new media and from hashers spanning the globe later, I sank into exhausted oblivion, from which they tell me, I will recover someday!
And a Merry Christmas to all…
Mudsucker