A few months ago I broke the Half-Mind Weblog, my Hash House Harrier blog. It’s still online, now an archive site featuring hash-related musings written between 1995 and early 2019. When it broke I said future hashing posts would appear here on Paul’s Thing, the blog you’re reading now. Honestly, though, there hasn’t been much: one or two “mash trashes,” post-ride writeups of motorcycle hashing events. Apart from motorcycle hashing, my days in the circle have probably come to an end. I haven’t thought much about hashing over the past year.
But then this morning I had a waking dream in which a former hashing nemesis, Stray Dog, put in an appearance. I was in a crowd doing down-downs and saw Stray Dog across the circle. I decided to let bygones be bygones and make friends with the man. Apparently he had the same thought. We worked our way around the circle toward one another, and when we met we smiled and shook hands. That was it. I woke up and got ready to face the day.
When I checked in on Facebook I saw it was Mr. Jackson’s birthday. Hashers will know who Mr. J is; for the rest of you, he’s a revered elder in American hashing, a founder of the infamous Rumson Hash. I sent birthday greetings and almost … almost … told him about my dream, still fresh in my mind. But I worried he’d think less of me and refrained. Instead, I’ll just tell everyone who reads my blog.
What is this “self-respect” of which you speak?
Just to see if it yet lives, I dropped by Stray Dog’s old hashing website. It’s still there, but it’s an empty shell. A link at the bottom takes you here, to the online ministry and bible college he’s currently running. I’m happy to say my old site, the Half-Mind Catalog, continues to offer world hash contact and other useful info to hashers everywhere, thanks to my successor Ra. Sorry, Stray Dog, even though we’re friends now, I couldn’t resist that little dig.
Just for fun, here’s an old Rube Goldberg cartoon I altered years ago, poking a bit of fun at the Flying Booger/Stray Dog wars, into which I worked mentions of other notable hashers of the day. It may bring back memories for some of you. Show of hands … who remembers Access Denied?
