Hares: Krusty & Mucky Dip
Where: 11213 - 30th Street SW
Big Rock: Yes indeedy!
Attendance:
In true Groundhog Day spirit, Krusty emerged from his Hobbit Hole somewhere in SW Calgary and actually showed up at a hash he was co-haring, unlike two weeks before.
Of course, the fact that co-hare Mucky Dip, known as Queen of Mean in other hash circles, probably would have gone all Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction on him if he didn't appear had no impact whatsoever — none at all.
It was irrelevant whether they saw their shadows, or if hashers need to keep snow shovels on high alert for the next six weeks.
The bottom line was this: There's nothing like a snowy, icy, often-dark trail through Bronco Dave's Side-Street Human Bobsled Adventure Land on a unseasonably mild mid-winter night.
Or navigating the icy mini-Alps during street crossings, or the more-than-occasional slippery spot on the sidewalks.
The icy conditions were a bit of a challenge for fresh-off-the-plane Welsh woman Haley and fellow countrywoman Abby Neck It, who's experiencing her first Calgary winter. Not unlike veteran Calgary hashers, they were slipping and sliding all over the place, although they managed to avoid breaking their legs.
Hashers gathered at new fave bar Swigs in some nondescript SW Calgary neighbourhood, hoping that the pub wouldn't close down too — unlike other hash hangouts Key West, Friar's and Kits had done in the recent past.
In fact, Kits closed the previous week, the day after 41 hashers showed up there to eat wings and consume mass quantities of beer. RIP, Kits.
The trail meandered through the icy streets, past the occasional house that still had its Christmas lights up, down frozen alleyways and back to the bar, where RA Punxsutawney Bobbin conducted hash business amid a torrent of mini-burgers, wings and copious amounts of beer.
Bobbin ended his self-imposed moratorium on choosing a choir, and selected Hardly, Dreary and Jaws — fresh from their appearance as backup singers in Bruce Springsteen's wretchedly cheesy and cheesily wretched Super Bowl halftime performance.
Jaws wanted to re-enact the Boss using a microphone stand as a stripper pole, but decided that even he had standards. Dreary and Hardly thought about doing the fake patter between Springsteen and Stevie Van Zandt, but some things are better left unsaid.
And none of them really wanted to slide on their knees across the Swigs floor. Besides, there was no cameraman available to act as a backstop.
The Hash 3 were tired from their trip to Tampa, but figured they couldn't do worse than the Boss and the E Street Band. So they sang. Badly, but they sang — just like the Boss, sort of.
There were also other things, both noticed and under the radar. For instance:
Inspector painstakingly went over four downs instead of three, NFL players are naturally that large and fast and never, ever take steroids or Human Growth Hormone, and how that Super Bowl team in black and gold is the Cardinals.
No word on when the Stamps will play the Steelers for the North American
championship. Go Stamps Go.
Oh, and the woman's last name was Drive. Honest.
It's kinda hard to describe, but Haley knows she likes A & W.
On-On!
Duke of Hurl