Why postpone?
Jersey Lunchbox and Circle Gherkin’ decided to give us a sampling of Hallowe’en by dumping on us a trail of horror. Starting from Parish Publick House should have served as a fore-warning things would not proceed as the standard fare of a Surf City trail. The entertaining company and pleasant weather lulled the litter into a false sense of security. Then again, the hare-pair merely played upon our well-deserved reputation as half-minds. The crew commandeered a table inside the building and for a while it looked like on-on-on. In retrospect, maybe we SHOULD have skipped this trail and did a warmup prelude to AGM. But we didn’t. Half-minds one and all. Eventually Circle Gherkin’ delivered an uninformative version of Instructions of Trail. I feel certain he and Jersey Lunchbox conspired to concoct something so enigmatic, no one in the pack would be able to ascertain it’s true meaning. And they did. And there was no rejoicing. Hares away.
The next fifteen minutes were consumed by basically attempting to not think about what would soon befall us. One thing that would definitely fall upon our little heads would be darkness and it would envelope us long before this trail was completed. Upon finishing what would be our last drink for a long time to come, co-GMs Cumz Out My Nose and Broke Bench Mountain corralled the clan and shooed us outside to conduct Circleup for Introductions. This action resulted in their hearing from: TIMMY!!, Flours For Anal Bum. Oral D, Pink Cherry Licker, dBASED, International House of Pussy, Steamy Baanorrhea and Puff the Magic Drag Queen. We had a small canine contingency this week consisting of only Junk Puncher and Scratch and Sniff. Pack out.
A pack arrow pointed the pod directly across Almar Avenue and onto Rankin Street. I readily admit that I find it impossible to retain my bearings when in the Circles. That, coupled with the fact we traversed every Locals-Only Alley for ten blocks around dictates what follows will be little more than a collection of uneducated guesses and sheer speculation as to where the hell this trail took us.
We took Rankin until an on-left onto Wilkes Circle. We crossed California, took a couple of treacherous alleys and found ourselves on Gharkey Street. This was soon followed by an on-left onto Continental Street which inexplicably morphs into Palmetta Street in a short time. We barely adjusted to this change before we were directed to make an on-right onto Graham Street. Graham was used until Walk Circle where an on-right and a quick on-left took us down another dark and dangerous alley to Wilkes Circle. We passed across Wilkes continuing on the same alley, still both dark and dangerous, to the innermost of the Circles, Errett.
We completed a half-circle of this circle and went on-right on Pendegast Avenue. Assuming everyone was thoroughly confused, and rightly so, the hounds were done with this large scale circle jerk and we pulled away from the Circles. Pendegast was used until following a hare arrow on-left onto Bethany Curve. The locals on this street must have known some of the Powers that Be as they were able to get this street closed to through traffic years ago. One block along, barricades prevent vehicular traffic, only pedestrians can connect with Bethany Curve in the next block. More to our liking was the fact this short, dark stretch of terrain hosted Beer Check this night. This was, by far, the most pleasurable section of trail thus far.
Soon enough though it was on-out continuing on Bethany Curve towards Monterey Bay. But we were not allowed a view of the Bay, we were directed on-left onto Oxford Way and then on-right onto Woodrow Avenue and again were pointed towards the Bay. But no, no viewing was in store for us. It was on-right onto Pelton Avenue and then on-right onto Clark Avenue. When Clark ends at Columbia Street we were directed on-right. Columbia leads to West Cliff Drive. Even this e-vile hare-pair would now be unable to deny us a view of the Bay. And it was so done, an on-right onto West Cliff Drive was mandated.
The purpose of routing us in such a circuitous manner was soon obvious; we were able to observe up close the damage the January and February ‘atmospheric rivers’ did to this stretch of West Cliff Drive. Major sections are missing never to be seen or heard from ever again. The final disposition of this section is still somewhat in doubt, the major goal now is to at least stabilize the cliffs to prevent further loss of land.
Trail continued along West Cliff until Almar where the Turkey/Eagle split was observed. It’s Turkey time. The Turkey was obviously directly on-up Almar to Garfield Park where Religion was to be staged. There we found short-cutters Cumz Out My Nose and Broke Bench Mountain already joyfully slurping beer from the trough.
dBASED convened Religion and here’s a sampling of down-downs dispersed. There was a convoluted discussion between dBASED and Pink Cherry Licker pertaining to the number ‘one’. One also coincided with the number of checks on this trail! Anyway, the result was dBASED being awarded a down-down; Cumz Out My Nose and Broke Bench Mountain being awarded punitive down-downs for missing Beer Check and Flours For Anal Bum for incessantly repeating the same story multiple times on trail. On-on-on was…wait. The hares. How could I forget those two jokers? Everyone appreciated the section allowing us to see the destruction of West Cliff Drive but I heard no compliments pertaining to the rest of trail. This Hash is over. On-on-on was back at Parish Public House which was a college gathering point and even more so since the demise of Burger.
The preceding was a factual accounting of actual events though possibly not as they actually occurred. One should never allow the facts to stand in the way of a good story. Do not allow the profound to become the enemy of the interesting.
A Scribe’s sole purpose is to provide entertainment to their kennel mates. Whether or not they are successful in this endeavor is still a subject open to debate.
I chose not to complicate this Hash Trash with facts thereby allowing me to extract almost any end I desired. It was with this motive in mine i recounted the events that comprised Hash Twelve-70.
By Special Appointment of His Royal Majesty ‘G’, /this Hash Trash has been compiled and printed by permission of no one other than the author at Santa Cruz, Ca., or elsewhere if need be, on this, the seventeenth day of October in the year of our Hash two-thousand twenty-three.
Submitted with all respect due,
Puff
the
Magic Drag Queen
Surf City H3 Scribe