Some time ago, I visited a hash in Southern California. I knew most of the hashers there, so I was with friends. The weather was perfect. The hares and the pack were stoked. The trail was scenic and challenging, and the hares did an outstanding job of keeping the pack together \u2013 the quick and the lame finished within ten minutes of each other. The on-in venue was hasher-friendly, far from complaining citizens and overzealous cops. There was an ample supply of beer, snacks, and food. There was a DJ and a dance floor, and the place was ours until two in the morning. Sounds like all the ingredients for a great time, doesn\u2019t it? Except for one thing.<\/p>\n
The circle. In a word, it Sucked, capital \u201cS\u201d intentional. Not because the GM and RAs didn\u2019t have their act together. Not because the pack wasn\u2019t interested and paying attention. It sucked because five or six self-appointed sergeants-at-arms kept shouting \u201cSHUT THE F_CK UP\u201d every time more than two hashers started whispering to each other on the outskirts of the circle.<\/p>\n
Everything was great until the shouting started. The circle was going fine. Not perfect, but as good as anyone has a right to expect. Sure, there was some background noise and quiet talking, nothing gross. But I guess these guys wanted perfection.<\/p>\n
At first it was one shout every five minutes, but it wasn\u2019t long before the pack began to resent being shouted at. Who are these thugs? They\u2019re not the boss of me! So they made more noise, and within a few minutes the goon squad was in full cry. I felt for the poor GM. He\u2019d say, \u201cBring up\u201d \u2013 \u201cSHUT THE F_CK UP!\u201d \u2013 \u201cManhandler for a\u201d \u2013 \u201cSHUT THE F_CK UP!\u201d \u2013 \u201cdown-down\u201d \u2013 \u201cSHUT THE F_CK UP!\u201d \u2013 \u201cfor getting\u201d \u2013 \u201cSHUT THE F_CK UP!\u201d \u2013 \u201clost on trail.\u201d You think I\u2019m exaggerating. I\u2019m not \u2013 that\u2019s literally how bad it was.<\/p>\n
The circle disintegrated. No one was paying attention. You couldn\u2019t hear yourself drink. I wondered what the hell I was doing there. I sure wasn\u2019t having any fun. And if I wasn\u2019t having fun, why was I there? What were any of us doing there, and what did all this shouting have to do with hashing?<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t noticed this phenomenon overseas, but it seems to be happening more and more in the States. The home of rugged individualism, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, or so we like to think. When did American hashing, my favorite recreational and social pastime, start needing jack-booted gangs of enforcers? When did the circle get so important we decided we needed SWAT teams to control the unruly pack? When did it get so important to control the pack in the first place?<\/p>\n
Why do you hash? You\u2019ll probably cite the exercise, the chance to experience the outdoors, the need to get away from your flourescent-lit five-by-five workaday cubicle once a week or so, the opportunity to see new things and learn more about your local geography, the beer, maybe even the occasional harriette flashing her tits. But I bet the main reason you keep coming back to the hash is the camaraderie, the chance to see and visit the good friends you\u2019ve made at the Hash. And seeing and visiting good friends is not something you can do in perfect silence, it it?<\/p>\n
Look, circle organizers, there is going to be a certain amount of background noise during any down-down ceremony, as hashers catch up on news with their friends. Most GMs and RAs understand and accept this. As a matter of fact, when the background noise reaches a certain level, GMs and RAs who are worth a shit take the hint and wind up the formalities. The pack lets you know when it\u2019s had enough.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s lighten up with the strong-arm tactics, okay? The circle just isn\u2019t that important. In fact, there was a time when there\u00a0wasn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0any circle \u2013 and\u00a0still<\/em>\u00a0isn\u2019t in many hashes. Most of us seem to have forgotten that, or never knew it in the first place.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve asked this question before, in a rhetorical way: did \u201cG\u201d and his friends, the original Kuala Lumpur Hash House Harriers, have down-downs and a circle? I posed this question to living legend and hash graybeard Ian Cumming. Ian hashed with the Mother Hash in the mid-50s, when Kuala Lumpur was the only hash in the world. He went on to found the Singapore HHH in the early 60s \u2013 the second hash in the world. He\u2019s one of our few remaining direct links to the founders of hashing. I think you\u2019ll find his comments interesting. By the way, the \u201cBill\u201d Ian refers to is Bill Panton, another ancient, still running with KLHHH (I met Bill recently, and he confirms everything Ian says).<\/p>\n . . . when Bill and I were first in KL the OnOn (not called that, nor \u201capres,\u201d nor anything else) went like this: Runs always started and ended at the Hare\u2019s car. Runs were invariably cold Hare and A-to-A. The Hare was often back at the start. In the trunk of the Hare\u2019s car were a galvanized tub, a clanking bundle of cheap aluminum drinking mugs, a large block of ice (yes, ice had been invented), twenty-four large Anchor beers, twenty-four small bottles of ginger beer and a fresh can of fifty Players cigarettes. When the first hound came in, everything was dumped into the tub (except the cigarettes of course) and everyone helped themselves.There was an obvious incentive to get back early \u2013 there was no plan for holding back extra beer for the DFLs. When the beer ran out, the Hare handed the tub, with mugs and empties, to the next week\u2019s Hare and we all went home. Well, some of us did; others repaired to some watering hole nearby, drank more beer, ate fried rice or mee, sang a few songs and generally made a nuisance of ourselves.<\/p>\n You will note, at that time there were no DownDowns, Circles or any ceremony of any kind. An exception might be if someone was leaving the colony for good and some kind of presentation was called for, and if there was no other farewell celebration in the offing, an engraved mug might be filled with beer and the recipient would be required to chug it.<\/p>\n To my certain knowledge the Singapore Men\u2019s Hash, started in 1962, followed the identical procedure up until 1967 when I left. In 1998, the next time I went on a regular run with them, many things had changed. Now a caterer brings a truck to the Hash, serves cold beer and sets up a food stall with substantial real food. DownDowns are done to the Hare and overseas visitors, and possibly virgins, but there is no Circle or RA as such. Singing, much disorganized, breaks out.<\/p>\n While Circles were much in evidence at the Mother Hash 60th Interhash (InterHash 1998 in KL \u2013 ed.<\/em>), I suspect the Mamma herself still doesn\u2019t have Circles, nor much ceremony after runs, and this is true of any Hash directly descended from KL, Singapore or Kuching. For example, the DC Hash, Rumson, New York and New York City don\u2019t have RAs, Circles or Hash Names, a tradition of which they are inordinately proud, for better or worse. By a process of tracing the origins of Hashes, Bill believes he can find the starting point of these ceremonies. My guess is that Djakarta (which wasn\u2019t founded until 1971 \u2013 ed.<\/em>) was the culprit, but only he can prove it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n How important are the relatively new traditions of the circle and down-downs? You decide. I like a good circle as much as anyone, but I sure as hell don\u2019t come to the hash to be yelled at. I come for all the reasons I\u2019ve listed above, including singing (which I forgot to mention earlier), but also to see my friends and to have a good time. I think that\u2019s what attracted the original Hash House Harriers. I think that\u2019s the memory they held to through that horrific war and the dislocations that followed, and that inspired them to reestablish the hash after the war. I think that\u2019s what\u2019s behind the spirit of hashing, which caught peoples\u2019 imaginations and caused the hash to grow to what it is today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some time ago, I visited a hash in Southern California. I knew most of the hashers there, so I was with friends. The weather was perfect. The hares and the pack were stoked. The trail was scenic and challenging, and the hares did an outstanding job of keeping the pack together \u2013 the quick and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hash-house-harriers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25535,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25534\/revisions\/25535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}