Buckie Breaks the Drought
________________________________________________________________
We all know what it’s like to watch farmers and the country suffer during long periods of droughts. Well……their prayers were answered thick and fast on Monday evening. It was also every hare’s worst bloody nightmare.
No sooner had Grape Ape dusted his hands from the chalk setting of both a runners and a walkers trail, each with double waterfront views (of Iron Cove Bay and Five Dock Bay), he ducked back home for a quick change, and then the heavens opened and a typical Sydney deluge ensued.
Even Surveyors chalk would have been downright useless. There was so much surface water runoff from the streets and pavements that reading arrows would have been almost impossible. Stand up a live hare with Trail Master, Salty. And just as well the maps had been waterproofed laminated on Grape’s super-doopa hiking map laminating machine.
It’s amazing how resilient, or is that just brain dead, many of the hashmen are. Not least as, (or maybe because), they had pigged out over the weekend at Port Stephens…but more on that later in this bulletin.
About 35 or more wrapped up and hit the streets like an army of drenched lemmings. Locals would have been scratching their heads at the sight, but Sydney is full of madness moments and the SH3 is a prime example.
Needless to say the afternoon’s work was shortened by Salty opting for an easier route (root?) but nonetheless he steered them around a course of sorts, editing chunks of deeply contemplated (well …..as deep as a Grape Ape can) trails and laneways with their captivating water views. Hanoi Bill wasn’t going to have a bar of this mamby pamby short cut-shit, and long cut his way to Five Dock Bay, as an 82 year old generally does all in the pouring winter rain, notwithstanding that there was enough bloody water under his, and every hashman’s, foot to keep them afloat for quite a while.
But the pack soldiered on like “Onward Christian Soldiers” fame. Tic Toc and Plunger went off (actually I think they got lost) by themselves and reaching Iron Cove Bay seeing he was so wet he (Plunger) decided to take a plunge in the bay. Tic-Toc had to restrain him from living up to his namesake.
Back at the bucket the ever iconoclastic Centre Point, a hashman not often known for his articulate subtlety and hash diplomacy, had the absolute temerity to suggest to Grape that it might just be “a nice idea” to relocate the bucket from the road side by the roundabout to under the awning of the local shop about 30 metres away, or words to that effect. Although the boys were already like drowned rats, a sustained drenching wasn’t their first priority.
A reluctant Grape with the help of his sodden mates soon moved to the shelter of the general store…much to the chagrin of the shopkeeper. But who cared? No one! There weren’t too many shoppers or pedestrians out in that wet weather anyway.
Grape’s reputation (both on and off the sports field) is pretty impressive. If recent sports TV and news paper coverage is correct (and which sports channels and newspapers don’t tell the full and frank truth?) then you will all know that one adoring and cheeky 13 year Swans AFL fan called out for her hero in the middle of the match ..no less than one Mr G. Ape.
Even Eddie McGuire got in on the act this week and suggested that Mr. G Ape would be perfect to promote the musical King Kong. Accusations of being “Racist” can be allayed very quickly. You see our very own SH3 Grape Ape has always taken his name as a badge of honour. As every hashman should.
Those who know him well, and I mean really well, will know that he is also something of a star of the small screen. But with the growth in size of plasma TV’s that screen is now getting bigger by the year. Anyway, did you know that Grape Ape also had his very own TV show? See promotion poster above. And his original written application to join the POSH hash actually hailed from Taronga Zoo on personalized letter head. No, I kid you not.
And just so that he had covered his options two ways, he also sent another application from a well known winery in Mudgee. Where else do you think that he earned his all too appropriate name Grape Ape. A quick search on “Who Do You Think You Are?” TV program revealed a fuller picture. And pictures galore!
And make no mistake, when you see the antics that Grape Ape gets up to,……..well there’s no doubt that we have yet another star among our hashing midst.
So….Meet the Boy….A connoisseur of grapes no less, but definitely the fermented variety, a sporting hero who thinks nothing of donning a 100 kilo backpack and strutting his way across Papua New Guinea for the weekend, or slipping a few 10 kilo dumbbells in his day pack to spice up a healthy, brisk Sunday walk across Arcadia or kicking a lozenge shaped ball around a large oval paddock in a racy attempt to boot it between two goal posts. That’s our boy! .
Grape Ape’s immense size tends to initially shock and frighten those unfamiliar with him, and his presence alone has often terrified people and smaller animals, causing them to run off screaming invariably: “YEOW! It’s a….Great Grape Ape. But underneath the bulk and bravado is a truly a tame “pussy cat” who wouldn’t hurt a fly. And always ready to help his mates out whatever their problems might be.
And talking of looking after his mates…Grape broke another drought….the restaurant drought.
After a boring 7 week stint with predictable steaks and chicken schnitzels with chips at all too numerous pubs and hotels with wash back wines (read …. sink cleaner) at absurdly high prices, he had negotiated a deal of a Lebanese meal at Kadmus Lebanese Restaurant, on Flying Scotsman Street…Oooops that should be Lyons Road.
And did the food ever roll in?. Fresh and hot, and plenty for everyone. And that included a room half full of the public who became part of hash group whether they liked it or not. Food Quality was at its best, the Sommelier had done his duty …and bottles really decent wine washed away the cold wetness of the winter evening.
Sadly though, taking full account of the other touch (light?) sensitive Middle Eastern patrons, the traditional fruity jokes of our hashing trade were cancelled so as not to tarnish our reputation forever. But we almost blew it when Tartan forgetting that the collected monies were still in his back pocket, walked out without paying the exhorbitant food bill. He was caught in the nick of time. Next time we go back to Kadmus, or any other restaurant, we’ll have to negotiate the place for ourselves AND No “mix n’ match” with the Middle Eastern community. They are hard to please with our brands of grog and jokes.
Your Hash Journo
________________________________________________________________________________________________________