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A running/drinking club to rule them all: Hash House Harriers
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It’s like that scene in Memento when all of a sudden the guy’s running and he doesn’t know why and he slowly realizes he’s being chased:
I’m in a parking garage, and I’m running, and there are others running, too, and every once in a while someone shouts something. There are white splotches on the ground; someone has left them there, purposefully. It seems we’re trying to follow these white splotches. Someone shouts out an indistinguishable syllable and the others start running towards him. He’s found another white mark. This is good. I follow the pack. We run, turning the corners of the yellow-lit garage, following the splats of white, eventually running several flights up a stairway and out the door, back onto the streets of downtown. We continue running and shouting, trying to find the way, motioning to the others when we’ve hit the trail. We race by people on the street, who look at us confusedly, bemusedly. And then, finally, we come to our destination: the brewery. He’s waiting there, the man behind it all. He has pitchers for us. And now it all makes sense. We were running for the beer - that was the goal. Sweet, sweet beer.
Was this the plot of some crazy dream? What do the white marks symbolize? Does this indicate something about my restlessness and/or soul searching? Or my imminent alcoholism? No, friends. No. It is simply the running/drinking club known as the Hash House Harriers.
The Hash House Harriers is an international organization, with chapters in cities all over the place (it actually has a pretty interesting history). The basic routine is this: someone is the “hare” who runs ahead of the rest, marking a trail (in this case, with flour). The “hounds” follow several minutes after, trying to find the route, indicating to the others when they’ve found a “hash mark” by yelling “OnOn!” The route might have several beer stops, either at a bar where there are pitchers, or at a park where there’s a cooler of beer. At the final stop, everyone sits around and drinks and sings crude songs. As far as I can tell, it’s kind of like cross country rugby, but with one big team and no ball (let’s not make any ball jokes, ok?).
My inaugural hash took place last Tuesday. We gathered at a bar in the Pearl District and met the ten or so other hashers, who, if they’re true veterans, have obscene hash names. One young man introduced himself as “Banana Condom,” a pretty tame pseudonym compared to most. Then, after a warm-up song about altar boys in the rectory - and please imagine my amused but somewhat embarrassed expression as this was being performed, quite loudly, in the middle of the sidewalk in the nice part of downtown - we were off.
We caught on quickly and followed the seasoned hashers through the parking garage, around the blocks of the Pearl, and ultimately to Deschutes, where our hare was waiting. After a beer and more public singing, the hare was off again, and the rest of us followed soon after. The next stop found us in the middle of the North Park Blocks, standing on the grass, sipping cans of brew, and enjoying the coolness of the evening. Finally it was off to leg three, which had us running to the train station, over the foot bridge, along the waterfront, up the the stairs to the Broadway Bridge, and back downtown.
Every hash has a name, and this particular one was the Beaver Hash. Upon my arrival at the final stop, the hare gave me a hat that read “FBI” - First Beaver In. This wasn’t quite true, as there had been several runners ahead of me, but I wore it proudly nonetheless. As darkness came on over the city, we were sitting in a circle, back in the Park Blocks, a beer in hand. The newcomers had to be inducted, whereby we got on our knees and a song was sung, at the end of which the phrase “Drink it down, down, down, down, down... “ meant we had to finish our beverage and invert it over our heads. I had to do an extra “Down-Down” given my elite FBI status. It would have made any parent proud (right, Mom and Dad?).
The Oregon hash website is here. On the site you can look at the schedule and see what hashes are coming up; the Beaver Hash is just one of many going on all the time, and there’s one for almost every day of the week. Your first time it’s free, and after that, they ask that you pitch in $5 to cover costs. Not bad, considering how ridiculous and fun it is. The only problem, as far as I can see, is that it’s very male-dominated; there were only two other women in addition to me and Dolores, and the songs were mainly from a perverted male perspective. Looks like I need to write some songs from a perverted female perspective - just another way to earn the esteem of my parents!
Much pseudo-athletic debauchery from
Your extremely mature and well-mannered Portland Twenty-something
