Pedantic Plunges into Virgins
Well, Bugger me!…..….just after I wrote that there were virtually no virgins left in Sydney, Pedantic, gets stuck into a scrubby few who have been left on the shelf. But as my righteous old grandmother would say in her haughty voice…….”They are from the wrong side of the railway tracks” (Read Freeway).
Never mind Boys…..I’ll bet to a hashman that you have never forgotten your first virgin. But regarding the median hash age these days, Jungle Jim recently quipped…..”it’s harder to remember when the last time was” .
And so with 2 years planning, including loitering around the local schools, toilet blocks and woodlands for suitable opportunities, Messrs P+P (Cpt. Pedantic & his valiant off-sider Puller-Plunger) set forth to “Boldly Go where no (hash) man has gone before”.
And so we did. Running out alongside the acoustic barrier wall to the Freeway, then through some low scrub, down into a valley and onto a half familiar trail…So it wasn’t quite all virginous!. It may have looked virgin, dressed up to be virgin and even smelt like a virgin, but Scotsman and Changi had sniffed out this short section of the trail about 3 years before. Never mind, we worked our way down into a shmucky urban creek and ‘Whoops!’…we entered a very large drainage culvert under the Freeway.
Believe it or not, chalked on the floor was “Noe-Shit has been here”. Bloody hell !. The Shit family gets everywhere these days! And then we really had a good taste of the virgins from “the wrong side of the railway tracks”.
True, they were a little rough but what would one expect? Pure Silk?. At our age? The roughened concrete swale drains high above the Freeway were made treacherous with slippery Casuarina needles; The Grape’s least favourite running or hiking surface. But we heard not a single ‘Grape-gripe’ tonight…such was his enthrallment with Pedantic’s vestrel virgins, well into his retirement age.
Through more open woodland, up steep hills and almost into an industrial complex…but not quite. After a long fire trail check-back Benny found a devious and perilous ‘On-down’ a steep densely wooded hill side which led us across a shitty creek. Your Choice let the front runners through on the basis that if he slipped and did a ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ that his mates would be there to catch him from below. His alias of ‘Spare Rib’ from doing the ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ and breaking his ribs in Lane Cove Golf Course (Gore Creek) is, of course, well known and well earned. Next up on the desperate SAS-commander-assault course was another culvert tunnel, this time so low that not even Little-Shit’ could have stood up. But we got through ‘heads down-bums up’ with torches flashing up the rear end of the hashman in front. Not a pretty sight! From there it was a romp home essentially on the out trail.
The next time Pedantic (& Plunger) set a run I’m going to buy shares in Woolies toilet roll company, Oh! In ‘Gyprock’ as well. Comprehensive, consistent and faultless throughout, paper hung like Antarctic white Christmas decorations, and chalk arrows smothered almost every available rock and boulder. It was a testament to their diligence that no-one should get lost.
Seriously, it was a good run with a huge amount of effort put in to make something new and something different…and Messrs P+P succeeded. ……..Famous last words!
Our International Hash-man of mystery, and I speak NOT of Tic-Toc, but our living (just) hashing enigma, XXXX. As the front runners were sweating their way into the bucket, our beloved (sic) XXXX was seen heading out on the home trail on his own just before nightfall. I told you last week…he is a bloody mystery all to himself. Later….much…much …later …..when the bucket was just a distant memory and the food all devoured, and all that was left were a few glasses of ale for the Down-Downs, in limped XXXX from the pitch black, scantily clad in his under sized running ‘briefs’ and a singlet (at least 3 sizes too small for him), clutching his torch and GPS.
Indeed he had completed the course to the fanfare from the pack sitting replete in the outdoor dining hall after indulging in BBQ’ed chicken fillets, rissoles, bean and tossed salad. I’m sure XXXX’s GPS reading will be upside down and so dark that it will be hard to read.
Do you remember last year’s so-called President?…….Yes…the one who promised so much but at the end of the AGM gave everyone the slip, slinking out unseen by the back door. Scurrilous rumours abound about where he and the remaining hash funds disappeared to. Well he it seems he assumed that we had all forgotten his criminal misdemeanours, and if we hadn’t, that we would forgive him. Yeahhhh ….Right?
So there he was last night, Last Card was wearing a brand new poofter skull cap…you know, the kind that “Artiste’s” from Balmain East, Glebe, Surry Hills or Paddington might wear so that they will be thought of as being intellectually ‘artsy-fartsy’ and articulate. NO such luck from us Hash brethren, Last Card.
He was also pushing this sob-story about being knocked down by a motor cycle in Vietnam. The truth is that he had just visited one of those dubious ‘humpy-pumpy’ massage parlours, was full of himself (and equally satisfied) with his latest conquest, when he emerged from the dark and dingy interior of this Communist bordello; stepped out into the bright, glaring midday sunshine directly into the path of an oncoming motorcycle. Bruises and swelling up his leg hardly won any sympathy. Nor should they!
The Other Hash Journo
