STEVENSON HALL HHH HASH #121


Date: April 5, 1987 

Weather: cold, rain and snow.

Set by: Van Fossen, Jones 

Runners:  Quackenbush, Dilley, Effross, the Geezer, Wachspress, Kaufman, 
Franchina, Pascal, Smith

"First to Cooler" Joe Burns, Dilley 


Description, comments: Good Golly, Aunt Molly!  We were assured of two things as 
we started out on this drear day;  no mud and the trail was over-marked.  We could tell 
from the state of the setters' shoes that the first was nonsense.  Could the second really 
be true?  Unlikely, at best, and so it was to be. A construction site on Route 518 was the 
start and an ocean of mud it was.  Strength sapping, shoe sucking, spirit stealing, 
deep,wet, slimy mud. A schort schlog through the construction led to woods and a 
series of cold swamps reminiscent of the last time we ran in this region (see #80).  
Unfortunately, this over marked run had a series of random overmarks far into an icy 
swamp that kept the experienced pack wandering in circles.  Franchina finally found the 
way out of the maze, and the somewhat chastened group followed.  One swamp led to 
another, each denser and deeper than the last.  Out we ran for a momentary respite by 
an ill-marked ruin of a barn which stood in a vast field of deer bones and strange, grave-
like, water filled pits.  This was indeed the pits and we wandered, lost in the decaying 
muck until Wachspress led us out, directly into yet another ice swamp.

More slurping through the slime took us to a stream bed and a false trail of outstanding 
length running the length of the stream.  Retreating along the backcheck we found the  
real trail leading up a hill past several very attractive dead refrigerators and piles of 
assorted junk over a hill to farmer Brown's.  The marks read, " EFC"  but might better 
have read "EFB".  Farmer Brown hisself showed up, gave the by now rather bedraggled 
pack permission to cross his fields, if, as he put it, "you think you can make it past the 
bull."  No bull! The rejuvenated pack now sped through the fields, noting the marks so 
tastefully placed on still steaming piles of cow (or bull) shit, emerging into another 
woods.  Down a hill to a series of fields and streams over which we soared until we 
found the dreaded eeelectric barbed wire fences, marked by "EMF" signs. 
"Electromotive Farce,"? "Entrails mean food"?  "Effross marks feebly"? Who knows.  
The marks, ever diminishing, led up hill to a huge field, utterly devoid of marks.  
Naturally we checked and rechecked the neighboring woods, filled with false trails, but 
nothing was found.  Eventually Kaufman, Effross and Franchina headed for the nearest 
road, while the geezer and Wachspress lurched at random in and out of the field like 
berzerk yo-yo's.  Meanwhile, Pascal, Quackenbush, Dilley and Smith (surely a worthy 
heir to the mantle of Mertz the Silent) had skinked stealthily across the field picking up





 the marks as they found them. "On, on" they cried while their fellows languished in pain 
and despair behind them.  What matter, in the end, the opportunistic foursome found 
the well marked- one might even say, "overmarked" driveway up to a house, nestled just 
off Aunt Molly Road.   Dilley outsmarted the other three to the cooler.  The rest of us 
staggered in as the rain began to fall.  We drank the beer and it was good.


Next Hashes:

#122, 2 p.m., Sunday, April 12, Courtney and Pushner set.   Stevenson 91.

#123, 2 p.m., Sunday, April 19, Havens sets the Easter Keg hunt.  

#124, Sunday, April 26, Smith sets (I think).