STEVENSON HALL HHH HASH # 242.4
Date: Sunday, December 10  
Weather: Crystalline
Set by:  Postage Paid, Corwin
Runners:  Throat Warbler, Hash Horne, Rahul, The Geezer, The Louisiana Reptile 
Fancier and a Rookie, Horne'spal
Beer:  Read and weep 
"First to Cooler"  Joe Burns 

Description, comments: As the Geezer lifted his ancient bones into the Stevenson Hall parking lot, 
last night's beer and this morning's brunch coagulating in his stomach, he was hardly delighted to see 
Postage Paid hanging his head as he stood beside his $90,000 hyper-turbo Stealthsaab.  Nor was it 
encouraging to see Phil Corwin, Postage Paid's unannounced co-conspirator ostentatiously looking the 
other way no matter how hard the Geezer tried to make eye contact.  Still, Phil was probably just 
embarrassed by finishing third in the Nebraska National Seashore ultra-marathon, and Fitzsimmons is 
renowned for setting under the influence of mammoth hangovers.  He was probably just trying to maintain 
his balance by keeping close watch on the ground.  But even before the pack set out the excuses began.  
Not since Lopez' pathetic series of "It were horrible"s that so richly earned him the Hashit had we been 
treated to as elaborate a series of transparent lies as Corwin and Fitzsimmons tried to palm off on the pack 
of crafty veterans and wise-beyond-their-years tyros. Mythic Ur-Hunters were conjured up to account for 
yet unspecified sins of setting.  Echoing Lopez, the gentle dusting of frosty snow was transmogrified in 
their accounts into an Ice-age Blizzard of dreadful proportions.  But their parking lot prevaricating was as 
nothing compared to the wynging and cringing that went on as the Stealthsaab made its secret way out to 
the start in the shadows of Sourland Mountain.  "Listen fellers," Postage Paid pled, "it's all Corwin's fault.  I 
wanted to make the marks bigger.  Really.  But Phil was set upon by a pack of sabre-tooth tiger hunters, 
and ... and... well you'll see, but believe me, it's all Phil's fault."

Thus prepared, the pack set out along the narrow confines of Broadway Road, somewhere in the Sourland 
wastes.  It was hardly encouraging to find the first mark - an indistinct circle of white flour nestled among 
the traces of snow left by the now-legendary storm.  Nor was the pack happy to find itself running 3/4 mile 
straight down Broadway to the edge of the little used tracks of the Reading Railroad.  These days the only 
cannonballs rolling down them tracks are the cattle cars full of wayward boys heading for the NJ 
Correctional Home for Incorrigible Proto-Criminals, and the reefers filled with sedated psychopaths 
destined for incarceration in the padded cells of the Carrier Clinique.  So we felt nicely at home as we 
loped down the tracks, occasionally detouring ever-so-gently through the woods only to emerge once 
again on the Reading RR.  No Ur-hunters appeared, although we scattered many a deer.  Finally we 
emerged at the entrance to the 3M Quarry, a secret site at which unknown but deadly minerals are mined 
by the legions of the hopeless – recaptured escapees from the NJCHIP-C (see above).  In we sped only to 
be brought up short by the cooler.  THE COOLER?  What was the cooler doing at this early point?  Were 
we not to run further, braving guards and tantalizingly taunting the testy troglodytes at the Carrier Clinique?  
Not to scale the scarps and scree of the great Sourland Massif?  No.  Well, at least there would be beer.  It 
was then that the true horror of the afternoon became apparent.  Not a sharp eyed deer hunter hoping for 
the chance to bag a hasher for the larder.  Not a pack of the Wayward Boys having an escape and 
dangerously anxious for some hostages.  Not even a runaway freight filled with illegal ore from the deep 
and dreadful mines of 3M.   It was...Your Scribe hestitates even to commit this secret to paper.  Other 
Hashes will forever look on us with derision and scorn if the word gets out.  So keep it close, and never 
admit that there once was a cooler on the Princeton Hash that was filled with the ultimate symbol of a 
society decayed beyond redemption – lite beer.

Only the Triumph in the Snow at Denver keeps the Hashit from these two.  Aloha.


Next Hashes:
Sunday, December 17, 2 pm, Stevenson 91, Curbishley sets.
Sunday, December 24, 2 pm, Stevenson 91, Chris Kringle sets.