Run #1449 - Mr Christie, You Make Cookie Cutter Streets

April 6, 2009

Hares: Bobbin Robin & Beer Slayer
Where: Westside Rec Centre - North Parking Lot, 2000 - 69 St SW
On-In: Shillelagh's Pub, 323-1851 Sirocco Drive SW
Big Rock: Jugs of Trad
Attendance: 40

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It's a perfect little cookie-cutter area, with perfect little cookie-cutter houses on perfect little cookie-cutter streets, where Ken and Barbie and their 2.3 children and their yipping little dogs that sound like squeaky toys go for their nightly walks.

It's pretty much Sameville, as far as the eye can see. It's on the west side of Calgary, but it could just as easily be on the west side of Edmonchuk or Regina or even Orange County, California, where cookie cutters were probably invented and prosper today.

Biff and Jody work out twice a week at Westside Recreation Centre, running laps around the weight machines, doing step aerobics and Pilates and hot yoga in their colour-coordinated outfits while listening to 80s hair band music on their iPods.

A cultural mecca, it ain't. If you're looking for diversity, whether in food or music or people, you should probably look somewhere else.

But co-hare lovebirds Bobbin' Robin and Beer Slayer decided to bring a bit of hash culture to WhiteBreadVille when they set a trail from Westside on 17th Avenue SW.

For once — for the first time in next to forever — it was a lovely night for a run. There was a bright orange thing in the sky, an orb apparently known as the sun. Rumour has it that the sun makes frequent appearances during Calgary hashes, at least in parts of the year.

There were also gentle breezes blowing from the west, which, believe it or not, didn't drop the wind chill to -30C. Sweat didn't freeze on your skin, and mitts and toques weren't required.

Be still my heart.

The hares apparently decided that after a winter of wussiness and sloth, hashers needed a good hill workout. So for what seemed like the entire route, hashers navigated a roller coaster trail of hill after hill after large hill.

Maybe it builds character, or some such nonsense — or possibly not.

Hashers eventually worked their way back to Westside, then drove down the hill to Shillelagh's Pub, where beer flowed — and flowed and flowed while the Flames were thrashing the LA Kings, and North Carolina was hammering Michigan State in a non-Canadian game known as basketball.

On this night, Bobbin pulled double duty, as co-hare and RA. What a versatile guy, no doubt about it. Give him a Juno, an Oscar, an Emmy, something. Or perhaps just another beer.

On-On!

Duke of Hurl


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