Run #1267 - It's Bob Marley's birthday!

February 6, 2006

Hares: Chick Lick, Mucky Dip
Where: Shuckalucks, 11440 Braeside Drive SW
Big Rock: Yes!
Attendance: 35

Click here for Photos!

There's no doubt Bob Marley jammed quite a bit of living into his 36 years on Earth -- as the King of Reggae, Jamaica's musical ambassador to the world and father to 12 kids by eight women.

It was unknown if Marley preferred smoking hash to actually running a hash, although an educated guess would say the former. Or where rum punch, 10-cent chicken wings and Big Rock jugs fit into his Rastafarian religion and lifestyle.

Or, most importantly, whether co-hares Mucky Dip and Chick Lick were actually Marley's 13th and 14th children.

Let's take a look at the evidence:

• They hared the hash on Marley's 61st birthday -- in Calgary, which is 4,929 kilometers away from his native Jamaica. A long-distance tribute to their father?
   
• They wore Marley-like dreadlocks, no one else did -- unless you count King Shit's wispy dread combover that provided a glimpse of what an elderly Marley might have looked like.
   
• Armed with a map and even after having set the trail, Mucky was unsure where Chick Lick's house, the site of the rum punch and soothing reggae sounds, was located. Was she that clueless, or was it some sort of channeling of Marley's ganja sensibilities?
   
• When asked point-blank whether they were actually Marley's love children, Mucky and Chick Lick laughed uproariously.

At first, Chick Lick offered a tepid denial -- "I've never been to Jamaica" -- but then admitted: "The secret is out."

"We wanted to do something to honor Dad, er, Marley on his 61st birthday," Chick Lick said. "We could have waited till the 25th anniversary of his death on May 11. But we wanted it to be a celebration, not a wake.

"Sure, it was sorta stupid that Dad, er, Marley died from cancer that started in his toe, then spread when he didn't want to have his toe amputated -- something about his Rasta beliefs," Chick Lick said. "But that was Dad, uh, Marley."

Mucky said Marley "was too great and positive a man to focus on the negative. He was a prince. When Eric Clapton turned his 'I Shot the Sheriff' into a hit, he was ecstatic, and not just for the royalties.

"We had the hash in Calgary because we didn't want to travel to Jamaica for the $300-a-ticket Cultural Vibration concert at the Bob Marley Museum in Jamaica. Too many memories."

So 35 hashers gathered outside Shuckaluck's, a one-time murder scene, to honor Marley, and run, eat and drink in his honor. The 8.3K trail, which might have been farther than Marley ever ran in his life, provided a treasure trove of fodder. For instance:

• Pyro, ever the trouper, returned from the hospital to hash -- only one week after his sidewalk tumble left him with a serious shoulder injury. He may miss some work, but he gamely made it to the circle.
   
• Always the beer pro, Smirk drank for his 600th best run ever. Thunder Tits received an engraved mug for her 100th hash. Unfortunately, her first name was engraved as Sharon, which is Twisty's real name, not Sandra, which is what it should have been. So it'll have to be fixed.
   
• Billythong did her last hash as a single woman before she and Limp Dick leave for wedding bells in Victoria. Even with Elwood the Hunting Dog in tow, Billythong took a wrong turn on trail and got lost for awhile -- wedding jitters? -- but eventually found her way back to the bar.
   
• Although he didn't have to drink for it, Hardly might have set an unofficial hash record -- at least for Marley's birthday -- by eating 462 wings. "Hey, it only cost me $46.20," Hardly said, as he shoved down another, and another.
   
• In a bold bit of bravery, or was it stupidity, Bobbin Robin decided to award the Hash Thing to Rubber Made, which may impact his lovemaking action during February.

Perhaps Bobbin should have asked himself, WWBMHD, or What Would Bob Marley Have Done? With 12 kids, or was it 14, the answer was pretty apparent: No Hash Thing for any of Bob's women.

The down-downs marked the end of the hash's Marleyfest. But in case anyone wants more of the Marley Experience, the Positive Vibrations celebration in Jamaica continues through Saturday night.

"It's the way Marley and the Wailers would have wanted it," Chick Lick said, wiping a tear from her eye.

On On!
Duke of Hurl