Rebels Without A Pause
by David K. Choo
The Honolulu Hash run
around, through and over some of the city's most
exclusive, inaccessible and unlikely real estate.
They call themselves a
drinking group with a running problem. Security
guards, police (both civilian and military) and other
protectors of private property may have other names
for them. A close-knit but loosely organized running
and drinking group--whose routes and on-trail
behavior have few boundaries--the Honolulu Hash House
Harriers run around, through and over some of the
city's most exclusive, inaccessible and unlikely real
estate.
"We're usually very
cautious about private property," says veteran
harrier Paul Woodford "But yeah, we end up being
chased all over the place. We especially like to get
into drainage ditches, you know--.anything to get off
the road. One time we got chased through the Dole
pineapple fields. Security eventually ran us down to
this gorge and into Red Run Stream, where we were up
to our waists in water. There wasn't anyplace for us
to go at that point.'' Typically, however, they were
let off the hook (no Honolulu Harrier has been
arrested in the line of duty to date).
Created in 1938 by a group
of bored British expatriates who met regularly at
Kuala Lumpur's Selangor Club (affectionately known as
"the hash house"), the original
"hash" (a catchall term referring to the
group, the race and just about everything else having
to do with the pastime) modeled their technique after
the English schoolboy game of "Hounds and
Hares," in which a single runner with a
reasonable head start (the hare) sets a trail and is
then pursued by a pack of his classmates (the
harriers and harriets). In the playing fields of
Eaton, the hares used flour and strips of paper to
mark their trails. In the concrete jungle of cities
like Honolulu, chalk is the weapon of choice, and it
is used to scrawl hieroglyphic-type clues to keep the
pursuers close. On finding one of these clues, a
harrier/ette immediately yells, "On, on!"
and the pack follows. While the ultimate goal is to
catch the hare (this rarely happens), it is the
thrill of the chase, the camaraderie and the
opportunity to finish a good run (this always
happens) that keeps the runners coming back.
"I really like
running, but I don't like competition," says
harriette Catherine Caine. 'With the hash you get an
opportunity to run at some great locations with some
fun people. We have a diverse crowd--liberals,
conservatives, feminists--that accepts you for who
and what you are. Don't get me wrong--they're not
very well behaved, and this certainly isn't the place
for the politically correct There's a lot of playful
baiting that goes on, but I've found that it helps if
you shout a lot."
Briefly interrupted by
World War II, the popularity of hashing exploded in
the '70s. (It reached Hawaii's shores in 1978.) Today
hashes can be found around the world and throughout
the United States. (Southern California. Texas and
Florida are home to large numbers of hashes.)
According to the Honolulu hash's "religious
advisor" (head harrier) Dwight Jackson, the
sport's spread throughout the world can be traced to
its British colonial roots: "Wherever the
British were, you'll find a hash. I ran in one in
London, and I met people who ran in places like Oman,
Bahrain, all over." But hashing may have less to
do with colonialism than with some good old-fashioned
rebellion - a chance to thumb your nose at authority
once in a while. "Beijing had a hash for a
while. but government officials were immediately
suspicious," continues Jackson. "they
figured that a group of people running around having
fun must he subversive. After armed guards chased the
runners around for a while, the government banned
hashing altogether
Every Tuesday afternoon a
group of about 30 to 40 subversives meet at a
location that is announced on a telephone information
line called "the hareline."
"Everyone's welcome," says Woodford.
"We get a lot of tourists who call us up, and
the next thing you know, they're out there running
with us. It works like that all over the world. Once
on a trip to Hong Kong--a world-class hashing city -
I called up one of the groups there and was told that
a car would come by to take me to their hash. I was
waiting outside my hotel when the next thing I know,
this limousine pulls up. ... You meet all types of
people."
In keeping with their
nonconformist ideals, the Honolulu hash has only two
rules by which its members adhere. The first is that
there are no rules. The second is that if they ever
get organized, the first order of business is to
disband. The hash does have a number of
"traditions" that seem suspiciously like
rules but nevertheless still maintain the group's
purity of line. For instance, articles of clothing
that have the words "race" or
"marathon" imprinted on them aren't
allowed, and new running shoes are immediately
stomped on.
An integral but not
required part of hashing is beer drinking. New
members are initiated into the group with a frat
house-type ceremony called a "down-down,"
where a beer is guzzled, a ribald song is sung and
the novice is given a new name, usually of the
bathroom humor variety. Woodford's, for instance, is
Flying Booger. Down-downs are also regularly
administered to members as a sort of pseudo
punishment for infractions incurred during the run.
"The drinking isn't all that big of a
deal," assures Jackson. "Most of our
members are runners first, and that's what they
really come out for." Following a hash the group
goes to a nearby restaurant, where beer and spirited
conversation flow. "Oh yes, there's a lot of
machismo at these things," says Caine, "but
we have a group of harriettes who see it as our duty
to keep it in check."
The worst place to hash?
Ala Moana Center, where, hash members say, security
guards seem especially militaristic. Most unusual
runs? Well, there was one that took them along the
rim of Diamond Head, another one that ended up at
Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station plunk in the middle
of nighttime maneuvers, and, of course, there was the
time Mountain Mary lost the trail and ended up
spending the night on Tantalus.
"There have been so
many of them," says harrier Tom "Beaver
Breath" Eisen. "But probably the most
memorable was the time that one of our guys thought
he'd caught the hare - you know, to catch a hare you
have to pull his or her pants down. Well, the alleged
hare was bending down tying his shoe when our harrier
snuck up behind him and woosh! Of course, he got the
wrong guy, just a regular runner. The worst thing
about it was that the harrier stayed around and tried
to explain to the guy why he'd pantsed him. We had a
major downdown after that run."
© Honolulu Weekly 1994