I am too lazy to update the web side but back end is up to date.
| Hash Details | |
|---|---|
| Hash Number: | 1339 |
| What: | Hockessin Hash #1339 - Being a Feverdream-Nightmare rehashing of the Mis-adventures Which Befell the Hare During the Solar Eclipse of March 7, 1970 |
| When: | March 7, 2020 |
| Where: | Chelsea Park, New Castle, DE |
| Hares: | Bunion Butt | Message |
| What: Hockessin Hash # 1339, Being a Feverdream-Nightmare rehashing of the Mis-adventures Which Befell the Hare During the Solar Eclipse of March 7, 1970, When: Saturday, March 7, 2020 at 3:00 HST Where: Chelsea Park (neighborhood of the currently winterized Dairy Palace custard stand) in beautiful, suburban western New Castle, Delaware Who Hare: Bunion Butt What Else: Prepare to revert to your pre-pubertal selves and join Bunion Butt as he sets trail through the stomping, bicycling, and marauding grounds of his impressionable youth. Twenty-seven years before there was a Bunion Butt, there was young Jimmy on the cusp of age 13 watching the sky turn eclipse purple. SEE: the tree where the pre-Bunion Jimmy attempted to rescue a captive, chained Spider monkey! SMELL: the marsh once set aflame by a 12 year old Jimmy Bunion! AVOID: the cops responding to reports of roving gangs and random car eggings. Hash Cash: $7.00 Friendlies: Dogs & kids on trail - yes. Apres - yep kiddies, nope dogs. D'Erections: From I-95, take Exit 5A (RT 141 & RT 202 South, a.k.a. Basin Road) toward New Castle. After less than one mile, turn left at a traffic light onto Jay Drive (Dairy Palace is located at this intersection). Stay on Jay Drive for 'bout quarter mile to Chelsea Park on your right. Turn right. Park. Hash. Or GPS search for 100 Jay Drive aught to get you there. Questions? Call Bunion Butt | Hashers |
| Asshopper Biatch Bitchard Bunion Butt Clark Cunt Cousin It Dead End Devil Woman Dick Fingers Dirty Wet Pussy Do Me On the Beach Gizz Specialist Groper Lost Penis NecroPheelMeUp Pool Portal Port-a-Ho PubeHeAteHer RaidR Sister Mary Margaret Benedickless Skidmarks Slutmaster Spit Bucket Toxic Shock Wet Lay Wishboneher Woody Woodpecker | Hash Trash |
| Trash for Hockessin Hash #1339 Necro: Submitted on behalf of the hare with a few additions ... names have been changed to protect the innocent (not really, no one is innocent here) ... So, the Slobbering Pack met up at Chelsea Estates/Wilmington Manor Park, close by the closed Dairy Palace ice creamery. A closed ice cream shop is a sad thing to see, but with temps falling and winds swirling, smooth cold and luscious was not on the assembled’s mind – there was hashing to be hashed! Orange snack pellets and golden beer were all we needed. Hashers I remember being present at some point or other included: Wet Lay, Dead End, Lost Penis, Skidmarks, Spit Bucket, Slutmaster, Port-A-Ho, Devil Woman, RaidR, Beeotch, GIS Specialist, PubeHeAteHer, NecroPheelMeUp, Pool Portal, Bitchard, Cousin It, Just Louis, Just Lou, Woody, Wishboneher, Dirty Wet Pussy, Toxic Shock, Asshopper, Sister Mary Margaret Beni Dickless, Groper, Do Me On the Beach, Dick Fingers ... others, umm ... there were either too many hashers to recall or too few to mention. Our Hare for today was Bunion Butt. Or maybe some little kid named Jimmy, it really wasn’t clear from his BS chalk talk. Let me see if I can summarize the Hare’s disjointed and rambling instructions: • Today marks 50 years since a total solar eclipse swept across the east coast of U.S. including over today’s hash terrain. • 13-year-old pre-Bunion Butt Jimmy spent that eclipse afternoon goofing around with schoolmates similarly stirred up by hormonal surges & purpling skies. • In the subsequent 50 years, Jimmy/Bunion’s memory of that eclipse afternoon evolved to include other events which, while they certainly did take place, could not have possibly all occurred on March 7, 1970. • Today’s trail will track the route of those events and memories. • Bunion thinks we give a shit. The RA Spit Bucket brought us together best as could be hoped for, Bunion demonstrated the proper trail reading techniques gleaned from years of playing “Army Man” in the area. Seems the trail marks recalled from his youth are evocative of, or more precisely exactly the same as, the marks used by this kennel since we were puppies. And since it was coldish as fuck, the pack did not linger but tore off and charged into Bunion Butt’s past. On-On! Out of the parking lot, into the streets. At first, the Pack wandered about, sniffing for trail along Roosevelt Avenue. The red and white brick two story house at 503 looks out of place compared with its next-door neighbors. It is out of place, having been moved from its original place next door to Jimmy/Bunion’s childhood home to this spot by the park. The white brick is evidence of possible corruption in the building trades. More white brick evidence was to be seen later on-trail. On-On! Soon enough onto the ballfields and parklands connecting the two suburban neighborhoods of Bunion’s youth. Back in the day, Chelsea Park showcased a rocket launching facility, massive black diamond sledding hill, and a baseball field where some of the best players to ever play on that field played on this very field. An adolescent learning center within a small but dense wood was furnished with a discrete grandstand for group discussion. Today, the launch facility’s been converted to a soccer pitch and the sledding hill has been lowered considerably for safety reasons. The feel-up woods have long since been cut down, but the make-out bleachers remain. We quickly passed through the parkland, barely pausing while crossing the culverted, unnamed, intermittent tributary to the Nonesuch Creek. Looked like a trashy ditch to me. But when summer gully washers fell, the tributary roiled and roared, making it ideal for life threatening games of chicken with the culvert pipe - the secret underground Culvert Chicken Club or CC Club was born. Welcome to CC Club. The first rule of CC Club is you DO NOT talk about CC Club with grownups. The second rule of CC Club is: kid jumps in the water 200 feet upstream from the culvert pipes and has to scramble back up and outta the ditch before being sucked into… On-On! Back onto the asphalt, and up Jackson Avenue with post-war barracks on both roadsides, first one story brick homes, then two story bricks. On Mischief Night of 1967, an aerial egg assault upon a New Castle County police prowler spun out of control at Jackson & Pennsylvania Avenues Crossroad. As the decades passed, Bunion took to describing the battle’s turning point as his improbable, high arc, long distance egg grenade toss that flew neatly into the cop’s open window and onto his seated lap. But that story may be but myth rising through the fog of war ... the egg throw was high, the distance was great, but an egg landing on a cop’s balls? At best the egg smashed into the cop car windshield. I know. I was there. We leave the two-lane asphalt battlefield and find our way to a weary eight lane asphalt Miracle Mile, where a right turn will lead to Tom Capano’s favored gun shop (two blocks further to the right we see his favored rug dealer), or a left will lead to Jimmy D’Orazio’s church. On-On! The Pack heads off to church, although a fetish clothes shop (Rush Uniform) tempts from our left and McDonalds glows on our right. Ummm ... McDonalds. If you timed the 11:30 Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Fatima just right, you could leave the service after sermon, walk over the bridge, spit on a car, eat French fries and return home exactly when expected following the 11:30 service. Two weeks before Halloween of 1966, under the large pine tree near the pedestrian bridge, LBJ stopped his motorcade returning from a noontime speech in Wilmington, so all the Fatima kids out for recess swarmed around him. He told us to make sure we told our Moms and Dads that the President came to see us today, but I couldn’t recall anything else he said, ‘cause his secret service guys had machine guns slung under their suit jackets!! We turn our backs to the traffic’s din and move onto school property. Past closed classroom windows of the now closed Catholic elementary school where, once upon a time, eighth grade teacher Miss McGrath wore leather boots that reached all the way up to our mid-morning snack break.. Past the no longer sanctified church, now a rectangle block of red brick, where baby Bunion Butt helped to break in the baptismal font 100 days after the 1955 cornerstone was blessed. On-On! The Pack scuffed heels over schoolyard blacktop playfields, the Hare all the while nattering on about recess time games of Relievi-o, Buck-Buck, Double Dutch, Red Rover, Cigarette tag, Dodgeball, Power-hop, Smear-the-Queer, yadda et cedda; most games gender specific, the best co-ed! Past the Benedictine Sisters convent, of course now closed, the basement having served double duty as school fall-out shelter and nun rumpus room. The Student Body grape vine buzzed with the rumor that the Sisters had a COLOR TV! The rumpus shelter was once called into use as a tornado spun during the school day, and some sharp sister pacified the jittering 400-kid packed house with gameshows on daytime TV, for most the first time television was not black & white. On-On! The FRBs blew right past the stained glass of Our Lady of Fatima church (very modern and chic on Opening Day 1965), perhaps in their haste to reach the statue of Our Lady of Fatima with three adoring children. Walking to school one morning, lil’ Bunion discovered a crowbar wedged beneath the marble heel of Mother Mary – and she was leaning forward! Obviously, Turks or other anti-papists unknown had been spooked overnight before completing their nefarity. Monsignor notified, police called, Jimmy deposed, report filed, case remains open. Had the FRBs not been in such a goddamn hurry to get past the church, they might have recognized the white brick of the church as the same suspect white brick seen earlier. Had they slowed down a bit when they crossed Roosevelt Avenue and entered a narrow grassy alleyway, they might have thought the white brick of the house ahead of them at 116 Van Buren looked familiar. Long-stifled rumors link the white brick evidence found in three building along today’s trail to two church elders; maybe honest businessmen, likely not, long dead. Dominic, an Italian mason and brick supplier and Paulie, an Irish contractor and heavy equipment dealer, planned and executed a scheme to: 1) help build the nice new white brick Catholic church, 2) lift Dominic’s old red brick house from its foundation on 116 Van Buren, 3) build Dominic a nice new white brick house on the now empty 116 Van Buren lot, 4) move Dominic’s old red brick house a mile down the road to a new foundation next to today’s Hash Start Park and putting on a nice white brick addition just to complete the circle. Paulie moved his family into the rehabilitated red & white brick house next to the park and Dominic moved his family into a nice new white brick house just down the alley from his church. The construction accounting was complicated and who could say for certain whether it truly takes 526,000 white bricks to build a church. But the diocese paid for 526,000 bricks and Paulie & Dominic got new homes. On-On! The FRB’s were long gone, out of sight, and your Hash Scribe cannot tell you what they were up to. They sniffed out a Beer Stop and that’s good enough for me. God bless ‘n’ fuck ‘em. The bulk of the Shuffling Slobbering Pack exited the narrow grassy alleyway near what was once home plate of the neighborhood sandlot. The pitcher’s mound, second base, third base, left field, and center field are now paved over pizza parking, but home plate, first base and entire right field foul line remain playable to this day. Next door to Dominic’s white brick house the Pack quietly passes 114 Van Buren Avenue, childhood home of Bunion and Sister Beni Dickless. One moonless night, at the intersection with Pennsylvania Avenue, wiseass Jimmy had his homemade slingshot and was slinging shots at passing cars. One victim returned the aggression by standing up on his brakes, leaping from his car, immediately spotting the wiseass, and initiating pursuit down Pennsylvania Avenue. At Pursuit Initiation plus 10 seconds (P.I. + 10), young Bunion enjoyed a 20 yards advantage on the furious running driver. At P.I. + 20 secs that shrank to 10 yards. Bunion did the math, calculated the likely outcome of continuing on a straight bearing, and in an open field, did a move he originated called a Zig-zag ©, and quick turned down Franklin Avenue. At P.I. + 30 secs, the predator’s footflaps were less than 5 yards back, and slapping hard closer. One final chance, “If I can just make it up one of these driveways into a backyard, I’m clear!” There’s the chance on the right – 206 Franklin Ave! Up the driveway, one hand on chain-link fence poised to vault to safety, legs now coiled and springing up ... up ... and ... away ... ACKK!!! Clotheslined from behind, Bunion is spun around to face his tormentor. What Bunion saw was a hulking middle age guy about the size of his father. What middle aged guy saw was about 90 pounds of shithead. Obviously furious, but now conflicted about how to conclude the encounter, middle aged guy glanced around to confirm he was unseen, then shot out one quick punch to the nose. At P.I. + 45 secs the situation was resolved. On-On! Leaving the scene of lil’ Jimmy’s tale of woe, we continued down Franklin Avenue ‘til we reached New Jersey Ave. At the northeast corner of that intersection is a tree to which, for one summer, was chained a Spider monkey. Our plan to bust him out one night, or to at least feed him a banana, ended when he started to whimper, cry and scream as we came at him crawling on hands & knees to avoid grownup observation. The monkey observed and reacted loudly. On-On! At last, after a hash-long diet of seemingly nothing but asphalt, we left the New Jersey Avenue right-of-way and entered the upland meadow headwaters of another unnamed intermittent tributary to the fabled Nonesuch Creek. The very air around us seemed to crackle with anticipation. Before descending any further into the Valley of the Nonesuch, BEER NEAR! we paused for a drink (and the pack was treated to an epic hash crash involving the hare tumbling down-down the hill on the way to said Beer Near). On-On! Now down into the manmade waterworld of post-WWII suburban stormwater management theory. After Beer Stop, the Pack, once again in a pack, regrouped and followed trail down the re-routed tributary. The waterway is natural, appearing as a meandering stream in 19th Century topographic maps. Today the stream is contained within an arrow-straight flow channel, having been bulldozed into submission to make way for the houses we see on both sides of the waterway easement, and follows the arrow-straight alignment of overhead high-voltage electric towers. Downstream the channel will empty into the Nonesuch Creek, itself re-routed in the 19th Century to drain marshland creating new pig farmland, and led to the construction of Hog Swamp Road, now known as Airport Road. Nonesuch Creek then empties into the Christiana River, that river having also been moved from its original stream bank in the 1960’s to construct the Interstates 95 & 295 interchange. Hash Scribe Note: Whew, that last paragraph was exhausting. Had to Google some of it. What I most recall is holding sweaty hands with Debbie Dugan under the power lines. On-On! Into the Woods. Bit o’ shiggy and a bit o’ mud. We spy phragmites reeds and other marsh vegetation on the right through the leafless woods. Today the soils along the swamp are soggy so we steer clear of the reeds. But during late summer months the marsh dries out and the drier soil releases its grip on the roots of those reeds. Two or three 13-year old punks could easily pull up a clump, set it aflame, windup, and throw the fiery plant into the small pool of open water still remaining. In fact, two or three 13-years olds once did just such a thing on an August afternoon – over and over again. It was inevitable that one flaming fastball would get away and land on firm, dry, crispy marshland. The afternoon was hot but without wisp of breeze to whip up the flames ... they thought as they began to stomp out the growing ring of fire. Thought it right up to the moment the Wilmington Manor Station 28 Fire Company’s community siren, intended to rouse the volunteers to service, began to wail. The situation now suggesting they conduct a strategic retreat, they bravely ran away along the same escape route the Slobbering Pack now found themselves traversing. On-On! The terrain rose slightly, footing improved, and fears of another Bunion Butt Wet Hot Mess trail lessened. Wild, overgrown and sodden forest floor gave way to grassy parkland that eased our transition back to asphalt suburbs and good old flour blobs. Up Godwin Road, where young Jimmy once tumbled ass over handlebars while cruising downhill shortly after learning the “Look Ma, no hands!” technique but before learning to keep his mouth closed against the unexpected swarms of bugs. Trail continued up Louise and the pack barely slowed when passing 11 Louise Road, Birth-Home of the Hare. On-On! And so, we fell into a familiar slog over suburban streets, a left here, a right there, and we were On-In. The Hare was made to drink (many times for not having enough rambling manuscripts on trail and for his epic hash crash). Interuptapussies were made to drink. Accusations made and answered and the Holy Hash Circle was closed peacefully. Following Circle, we assembled at Dom’s New Port Style Pizzaria for ... duh – pizza. More beer was consumed, revelry was had, and all in all, it was another shitty trail. Stay tuned for Hockessin #1340 this Saturday. On-On! Bunion Butt | |
| Note: | |
| Two hash trashes! One provided on trail the other modified | |
| Files: | |
| Trash Handout | |