PRINCETON HHH HASH #1026.9

Date: Sunday, February 6, 2005

Weather: Bright

Locale: Griggstown

Hare: Delicate Psyche

Hounds: Weapea, Count von Count, Brain Injury Volunteer,
Safe Sweats, Hey YO! Paully, I Hear Old People, Ice Blue
Balls, Sonuvabitch

Rookies, Virgins, and Cub Reporters: Brian Aicher, Clever Trevor 
the photographer, Regina the Perfect Roommate 

Overheard on the hash: "I didn't notice the barbed wire" - Delicate Psyche

Descriptions, Polemics, and Lies: Signs of the Apocalypse

    "Grampy, tell me about the old days in Griggstown, you know, before they laid the 
interstate over the canal and paved all the trails in the woods."

    "Yew jest set down on that there cracker barrel, young'un, and I'll tell you stories 
to make your skin crawl like an inch worm."

    "Wow, really?"

    "Well, back in the winter of Ought-Five, there were some strange goings-ons in these 
parts. It were jest after the big blizzard, when yer grammy got attacked by the snow 
weasels while fetching some pine cones for stew.  I went down to the general store to pick 
up some apples, wondering 'bout these perfect pink circles on the roadside, no bigger than 
a moosetick.  When I got there, the fellas told me 'bout this wild group of out-of-towners 
whoopin' and hollerin' at the next lock, scrambling along the canal in the briars when 
they could'a run on River Road.

    "We were all sittin' there, talkin' bout diabonol and baseball by the hot stove, when 
Clem Hunkenlooper burst in, lookin' like he got hot chestnuts where they ain't supposed to 
be, you get my meaning.  Seems he heard a whole bunch of yelling on Coppermine Mountain.  
He even tried to imitate it, and it were the awfullest thing you ever heard, a sort of 
"Onnnn Onnnn!"

    "Grampy, stop, you're hurting my ears!"

    "Then it went 'Rrrrrr Uuuuuuu?'  Get out from under the couch, boy, it's jest a story."

    "But you said it's true!"

    "It is, but that ain't the worst of it.  Virgil Ackerley said he was out checkin' his 
fences round about that time, and found some kind a flesh on the barbs.  Not  no animal 
flesh, neither, 'cause there weren't no fur on it.  Then, when he looked up, a big shaggy 
mountain man and a woman riding a shaggy hound went scootin' by, in the direction of the 
yelling.  Then it jest . . .  stopped.  Not a peep off the mountaintop and seems no one 
ever came down.

    "Later, when Pete Wimpole called the phone exchange report five angels had landed in 
his field, we figgered like as not that those weirdos been sucked up to heaven to escape 
the devil couple.  Least, some of them.  There was one who streaked past a couple a cyclists 
like they were standing still on the towpath, and then down by the picnic tables in the 
park?  Oh, the stories some families told, 'bout this gang drinkin' foul smellin' brews and 
singing dirty songs while a couple of them, a boy and a girl, took off their shirts and put 
on these skimpy little things.  Posing and showing off like they were some kind a 
supermodels.  Weren't all bad, seems the shirts didn't like Darwin any more than most of us.  
Still, they were raising a ruckus, so someone called Ossifer Ozzie to clear'em out.

    "And you know what?  It weren't but 15 minutes before he got there and they were gone.  
Flat gone.  All he saw were a bunch of old folks, poor by the look a them, he said, 'cause 
their clothes were all tatty, legs all bleeding, not a bottle or cup in their hands, not a 
song on their lips, jest shutting their trunks and heading home.

    "But when all was said and done?  No one ever explained the ON IN in the snow at the 
third lock.

    "Now, look here sonny, you keep wettin' yer drawers like that, I can't tell you any 
more stories."

    "I'm sorry I ever asked, Grampy, next time you better tell me about the legend of the 
Big Farma instead."