Lakeside Hash House Harriers The drinking club with a running problem
LAKESIDE HASH HOUSE HARRIERS COMMITTEE 2004-2005
Grand Master The Boomerang Religious Advisor SBD Hash Cash Underfelt Grog Master Janus Soc Sec Miss Piggy On Sec Rolf Harris Hash Haberdash Shagadelic Hare Raiser Kokup Hash Flash Bovine Breeder Web Master Klingon
Subs of $50 are now due, payable to HashCash Underfelt!
Run 10621, 20 October 2004 Hare: GG Venue: Cheltenham Park, Park Rd, Cheltenham.
Run 1062 Hare: GG Cheltenham Park, Cheltenham
It was the Dead Run, as Cheesecake said, beginning and ending at Cheltenham cemetery. And as Whippet observed, GG survived it well-enough, unlike previous runs he’d set from the same venue. The run went around leafy streets, up laneways, across parks, alongside the railway and back in; but it didn’t fool Udder Idjit whose keen memory and local knowledge noted that it was the reverse of GG’s previous run from Cheltenham Park. Run was rated at a pretty good score out of something-or-other. Udder is moving to Mt Martha soon, so we hope he doesn’t get tempted away by RPH. Returnees were Kokup, Gerbils, Irish (and me). Clitus got a brand new car; so has Mothball. PointPost apparently (or so it says in my scribbled notes) got a new woman.
There was a lot of untoward funny business, actually. According to Clitus, Gumboot is so short-sighted without her glasses that she needs to feel/ stroke/ and/ or grope to find the knob. Lethal didn’t want his two girlfriends mentioned in case either of them reads the Trash. Janus has a new regular Thursday thing going with a young Harriet playing Ma-Jong or ‘tossing the tiles’ as he puts it. E& B was overheard talking about going in-and-out like a honeymooner. And when she downed her lukewarm charge for saying so, she kept it going by remarking how liquids at body temperature slip down so easy.
Eventually The Boomerang managed to lower the temperature and get a few regulation, business-like charges going: Cooch & E&B did the Bayride, Astro drank for the Double Nelson (222 runs), Punch sat in the circle; and I demanded to know from GG why the Cheltenham Park Circle had shifted 80 years east of the traditional D.H. Blackburn Pavilion; to which the not-unreasonable reply came that this was necessitated by the local council’s demand that he stump up the $80,000 required to cover the cost of the new fluoro.
At this point, Nickel-B sidled up and noted that the Trash looked a bit light-on for content, so he decided to help out by telling the tale of his 1964 tour of the Sub-continent and Central Asia. Hashers may recall how Shunt livened up the Trash (Run #881) by regaling us with his own epic trek through the Middle East. Well, it all started for Nickel–B in Quetta in the wilds of Pakistan; now a hive of fierce tribesman, gun-running and undercover al-Qaida operatives, but in those days just a tranquil backwater of fierce tribesmen and gun-running. No sooner was Nick off the bus and settled into his downtown fleapit with his budget of U.S. $2.50, than the India-Pakistan War (Take 2) breaks out around him. He is hastily pushed off to Iran. There’s nothing for it but an enervating ride over the mighty Dasht-i-Lut desert in your standard clapped-out bus. The road is a corrugated grill of wheel ruts either side of which the wind whips up endless tracts of sand. No sooner are they 400 km into the trip but the back axle goes. Unperturbed, Nickel-B piles out with his fellow travelers, a jolly crew of fierce, bearded tribesmen, their wives, children and goats, who proceed to pump up the gas stoves and get the tea on. Finally the driver and a few mates manage to spot-weld the axle back together over a roaring furnace, and then, it’s off again. Only another 50 km into the trip and the driver keels over with a sudden attack of cholera and has to be laid up on the back seat. Short straws are drawn, and the only other licensed driver, a 6-year old boy, takes over the wheel. Barely able to peer over it, he lurches the bus forward yet again. Days pass. In the good oases, it’s sweet melon jam with dry flat bread; in the bad oases just the dry flat bread. Once there was a hearty local rice stew with a spicy but suspiciously tangy flavour, enjoyed by all under the moonlight, which on inspection under torchlight proved to be a swarm of weevils providing the protein. Nickel-B eventually staggers across the border to Iraq, but no sooner is he settled into his palatial Baghdad hotel-that-has-seen-better-days, than the (by now) 1965 revolution breaks out. Concerned that Nickel-B and his companions will gain an unbalanced view of the country by peering out of their hotel windows at the corpses swinging from the yardarms in the main square, the local Ministry of Tourism kindly provide a coach service to the relative sanctity of neighbouring Jordan. Down to his last 99 cents, Nickel-B manages to arrange a conducted tour of Petra, and then it’s on to Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and all points north. …And that brings us up to date with all but the last 40 years of Nickel-B’s eventful travels. Stay tuned.
On on Mummies’ Boy
Upcumming events Next Full Moon run is Sunday 21 Nov 04, Anakie Gorge, 4pm, Hares: NickleB & Lotsa Fun Balls-up 2004 Saturday, 30 Oct 2004 7pm Geelong Melbourne Bike Hash in the King Valley winery area is November 6/7 – see Whippet for a flyer. NashHash Easter 2005 .
UPCOMING RUNS & EVENTS
27 Oct 1063 Rigby Beckett Park, Balwyn. Lookout Tower off Banool St 46 G7 Halloween Run. Don’t park in the car park off Parring Road. Park gates close at dusk. Tram 23, 42, Stop 54. 3 Nov 1064 Clitus & Gumboot A.E. Shepherd Oval, Footscray Park 2S J4 Melbourne Cup Hat Run 10 Nov 1065 IBM & Swallower IBM’s Southern Retreat, 7 Nelson St, Sandringham 76 H8