Dear Doctor Down-Down,
I am 8 years old. Some of my little Hashing friends say there is no Gispert. My Grand Master says, “If you see it in the Half-Mind Catalog, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Gispert?
On On,
Virginia O’Hanlon
Dear Virginia,
Your little Hashing friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of our modern age, distracted by electric lighting, the telegraph, and those new-fangled tin cans of beer. They do not believe in any trail mark save the trail mark they made with their own hands. They have private parties when they should be part of the Circle. They think that nothing can be of any importance whatsoever except that which for the moment occupies their little half-minds. And half-minds, Virginia, whether they be Harriers’ or Harriettes’, are by definition limited. In this great world of Hashing, an individual hasher is a mere Hound, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless group mind of the Circle, an intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth, knowledge, and Hashing.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Gispert.
He exists as certainly as mud and sweat and shiggy, and you know these things abound, giving to the Hash its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the Hash if there were no Gispert! It would be as dreary as if there were no Circle, no beer. There would be no Hashmanlike faith that the trail has an end, no songs of cheer, no uplifted mugs, no sitting on the ice to make tolerable this worldly existence. Life would have no rewards, except for the tedious and automatic accomplishment of surviving yet another day. The eternal and beer-sodden delight with which the childish mind of a Hasher approaches even the most challenging trail the Hares throw in his path would be extinguished.
Not believe in Gispert! You might as well not believe in shredded paper. You might get your Grand Master to ask the Mismanagement of all the Hashes in the world to show you Gispert, but even if they could not show you Gispert, what would that prove? Nobody sees Gispert, but that is no sign that there is no Gispert. The most real things in the world are those that neither Harriers nor Harriettes can see. Did you ever see a Fat Boy leave the camp? Of course not, but that’s no proof that he doesn’t ever. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the Hash.
You pull down the Hare’s pantaloons to see what there is to see, but there is a pair of pantaloons covering the unseen world which not the strongest Hasher, nor even the united strength of all the Hashers in the Circle could pull down, unless they believe in Gispert. Only the Hasher’s true faith in Gispert can pull down those pantaloons and view the glorious and supernaturally beautiful object dangling within. Is this the object of Gispert? Is Gispert real? Ah, Virginia, in all the world of Hashing there is nothing more real and abiding.
No Gispert? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of Hashdom.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hashing!
Doctor Down-Down
Dear Readers,
It’s time for a good Christmas poem, and I just happen to have one handy . . .
The Hash Before Christmas
Twas the Hash before Christmas, and all through the land,
Hashers were stirring, the trail would be grand;
Their hash bags were stuffed in the B-Van with care,
In hopes our Grand Master soon would be there.
The harriettes were wrapped all snug in their sweats,
Speaking – as usual – like they all had Tourette’s;
And the wife in her Spandex, and I in my tux,
Were up for a trail, no matter how fucked.
When from the next lot there arose such a clatter,
We ran for the fence to see what was the matter,
Over barbed wire we hopped in a flash,
Ripped our shorts as we did – what the hell, it’s a hash.
The full moon shone down on a ragged tent city,
Inhabited by homeless, on whom we took pity,
When what to our wondering eyes should be there,
But our Grand Master – and dressed as a hare!
With a great big beer belly, and a tankard of lager,
I feared the GM would soon lead us to slaughter;
More rapid than bad news his co-hares they came,
And he guzzled, and belched, and called them by name:
“Now Magic! now, ZiPpY! now, Fine Ass and Banger!
On, Wilma! on, One-Two!, on Smiley and Psycho!
Through the worst of the shiggy, through valley and dale,
Now, hare away, hare away, lay us a trail!”
As after long circles dry heaves we do retch,
The hares sprinted off with nary a stretch,
And into the woods with their flour they flew,
While we sang Father Abraham, and Wanking Day too.
And then of a sudden, headlights loomed in the dark,
The pack watched in silence as an old Falcon did park;
Then from this rust-bucket there sprang with a hail,
Our Religious Advisor – who we thought was in jail.
He was dressed in hash rags from his head to his crotch,
And his clothes were all stained with semen and scotch,
His mouth it hung open in a great gaping leer,
And all four of his chins did glisten with beer.
A well-worn hash whistle he held tight in his teeth,
And his BO encircled the pack like a wreath;
Our long-missing Hash Shit he did clutch in his hand,
He looked like a refugee from some war-torn land.
His eyes, how bloodshot! His nostrils, how hairy!
His cheeks were all stubbled, like Yassur’s, how very;
His nose was all runny and his stomach did sag,
The way it rolled over his shorts, even Vax Headroom did gag.
He was a trailer park reject, a man of no status,
Spicy Tunaroll laughed, Crash Test Dummy passed flatus;
And the droop of his eye, and the point of his head,
Soon gave us to know we had reason to dread.
He said not a word, but went straight to the tap,
And filled up his mug, the free-loading sap;
Then putting his thumb up one side of his nose,
Blew a great wad of snot, which he wiped on his clothes.
He took off down the trail, leaving us stunned,
It was hard to believe such a fat fuck could run;
But we heard him exclaim as he faded from sight,
“Happy Christmas to all hashers, and to all a good night!”