PHHH #1002.9

Date: Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Place: Route 1 at the Canal Bridge

Weather: Bursting

Time: 45 minutes for the pack, 1:30 for Josh

Hare: Pyroman

Hounds: Hey YO! Paully, Ouipee, Wacko, Count von Count, Geezer, Josh nka What a Moron 

Yelled at on the cellphone during the on-in: Speedbumps



You could hardly miss the predictions for stormy weather, which took its time, flirted with Wacko 
and Ouipee as they gathered at the state park system's smallest parking lot--how many quadriplegic 
visitors are they expecting to roll up the bridge, anyhow?--and then opened up as the pack crossed 
the canal without swimming (a curious oversight by Pyro, but it's been done before).  A curl south 
through fine woods and then looping back in various iterations toward 295, but not before the 
hounds reached two marks on the culvert underneath the 6-lane highway.  Might be a check, thought 
Wepe, who waded through silt and over the bones of nameless hobos to the other end, missing the 
hailstorm that added some dimples to Geezer's gnarled cranium.

    Wacko found the last mark, thanks to years of training his eyes like stereo spectroscopes, the 
barest perforation of glutinating powder from which a crescent, no, that's a circle, might be 
inferred before the rising waters of the flashflood rinsed them away.  Forty minutes in, that 
wasn't bad, time to call it a day, no marks within 200 yards of the check, up the incline to the 
Route 1 entrance ramp and look for the hare.

    Josh wasn't 20 feet behind Geezer and Huipy, just emerging from the woods as they headed down 
the road.

    "Hey, where're you going?"  Thinking back, the voice betrayed a trace of disappointment.

    "No more marks in this rain, back to the start."

    And that was the last anyone saw of Josh for 45 cheerful minutes under the back door of Pyro's 
kraut kar, kwaffing kwik kegs of Yuengling, cheesy poofs, and mocha Oreos. (If it wasn't for Pyro's 
brand loyalty, Nabisco would have tanked three years ago, thanks to carbo paranoia)  Gradually it 
began to dawn on the pack, featuring, what, nearly 2,000 hashes among them, that someone should go 
find the third timer.

    "Can't be done," said the hare, quite sensibly.  "There aren't any roads.  Hell, he's probably 
been eaten by beavers by now.  Haw!"

    But that's why we have a grandmaster, and so Geezer and Ouipee headed north on Route 1 while 

Paully took the high road over, mooning a grateful teamster en route.  And again, the grandmaster 
showed the power of his hawk-like vision, spotting just the briefest bipedal movement on the other 
side the 295 overpass.

    "Yes, that's him. Quick, back to the start!"

    What kind of tyro would plunge back into the melted taiga, hoping there might be a mark 
"farther in"?  What kind of undergraduate would ignore the sensible conclusion of hounds infinitely 
wiser in the ways of hashing?  What kind of moron would. . . ?  What a moron!

    And it sung, and Josh got his name down downing from the empty cheesy poofs bag.

Next up:  Who's setting tomorrow?