Running Wild
The Los Angeles Times
12.24.97
By DAVE WIELENGA, Special to The Times
The streets of Costa Mesa were
filled on Sunday with the antics and 'organized
anarchy' of the Hash House Harriers. It's nuts-but
aerobic.
They donned gay apparel, blew
whistles, sounded horns and raised their voices like
cacophonous choirs of not-so-heavenly hosts. They
slalomed through the crowds that packed the shopping
malls of Costa Mesa. It was the first day of winter
and the last shopping weekend before Christmas, but
it was the same ol' same ol' for the Hash House
Harriers.
"We came to a big shopping
district and dressed this way because it's
December," said a man whose fluffy red-and-white
stocking cap was stuffed so that it pointed straight
up like a dunce cap. "We wanted to spread
holiday goodwill and Christmas spirit. Also, we
wanted to create a little pandemonium."
Except for the details of their
costumes, props and poses--a man wearing antlers sang
an adapted version of "Silent Night" while
carrying a Christmas tree fashioned from a toilet
plunger, complete with battery-operated blinking
lights--it could have been any Hash House Harriers
event at any time of year. For hashers, as they call
themselves, 'tis always the season to be a little too
jolly.
"Hashing is what it
is--organized anarchy," said a veteran hasher,
whose headdress and sunglasses and attitude cast him
as a cross between one of the Three Wise Men and a
Middle Eastern arms dealer. "It's loaded with
tradition, but in a free-form sort of way."
A run with the Hash House
Harriers derives from the stupid-human-tricks school
of fun and games. Once a week they gather
somewhere--could be anywhere--with noisemakers and
name tags and chunks of chalk and bags of flour to
chase one another for several miles in a wacky
version of the old English game of Hounds and Hares.
The hare or hares (usually one or two) get a
15-minute head start and lay a trail of chalk and
flour to mark their path. Then the hounds set off,
following the markings and trying to catch them.
A code, from symbols written on
the ground to toots on whistles to shouted words,
enables the hashers to communicate as they
frenetically try to follow the trail and catch the
hares before they reach their destination, usually
after a run of three to six miles, which can take an
hour or more. The hare picks the course several weeks
in advance, and meeting places are announced in a
weekly newsletter.
The appeal is based on the same
embarrassment-is-beautiful philosophy that at this
time of year translates into the popularity of
impromptu caroling and last-minute shopping. Or, for
that matter, chug-a-lugging holiday spirit--another
significant part of the Hash House Harriers
experience. At the finish line, they drink beer and
sing songs in kangaroo court fashion.
Some of the 107 men and women
(a typical number) who participated Sunday noted with
a certain reverence that the course--which began in
the parking lot at the Metro Pointe shopping center
in Costa Mesa and concluded in a park across the
street from the Trinity Broadcasting Network and its
Gold, Frankincense & Myrrh Gift
Shop--encapsulated various meanings of the season.
Still, one veteran hasher said,
"During the heat of summer, 300 of us go to San
Diego and run down the streets in red dresses. Except
for how much we sweat, that's not much different from
this."
The color scheme was certainly
similar. Red was easily the most popular sartorial
choice among revelers Sunday. It was employed to
invoke fashion statements that ranged from bad-taste
spins on Santa Claus to good-natured ventures into
the sacrilegious.
"Nobody should take any of
that too seriously," chuckled a hasher who has
been at this for 16 years. "The [original] Hash
House Harriers started as an anti-establishment
exercise, and it's going to more or less stay that
way. Any changes over the years have been pretty
subtle."
The roots of the Hash House
Harriers reach back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in the
1930s, when a gentleman named A.S. Gispert and some
British businessmen and military officers decided
that some Monday exercising might be a good way to
offset the effects of their weekend socializing.
They began to jog around the
Padang, the seaport area of Kuala Lumpur, but they
invariably ended up at a Chinese eatery called the
Hash House, where they always seemed to find
themselves soaking up more beer.
When the men became bored with
their same old course, they began incorporating the
Hounds and Hares game, taking their exercise
throughout the area. The manager of the Hash House,
afraid of losing the lucrative business the men
represented, began following the runners with a truck
full of cold beer.
The combination proved
increasingly popular, and hashing has become an
international activity. There are nearly 1,000 Hash
House clubs in almost 100 countries. Hashers claim
they can find a run wherever they roam.
These days, Hash clubs get most
of their members from people who seek an alternative
to 10K races.
"I've always liked to run
and exercise," said a middle-aged woman made up
like a reindeer, "but I've never liked to
compete. I'm not fast, but I finish, and that's
enough for hashers."
It's a close and friendly group
but also nearly anonymous. Runners refer to one
another by the nicknames each receives after
participating in their sixth hash. Few even know
others' true names. Most of the nicknames are based
on the person's hobby or profession or physical
characteristics. Few of them can be spoken in polite
company.
John Jaeger, 51, a commercial
real estate broker from Irvine whose hash name is
Spider, was the hare for Sunday's race. He's been
hashing locally since 1983, a span of more than 500
events. "I've hared at least 50 times, and I've
never been snared," he boasted on the starting
line. Two miles into the run, however, that streak
ended when a first-time hasher--wearing a backpack,
no less--caught him. Jaeger shrugged off his
embarrassment. "I just invited him to help me
lay the rest of the trail," he said.
The course meandered past
Macy's, where the hashers were almost
indistinguishable from a valet parking crew also
bedecked in floppy Santa stocking caps. It went
through Hooters beer joint and the Golden Spoon
yogurt shop, where most runners stopped for
refreshments.
Runners frequently lost the
trail, then inevitably found it. But they never
escaped the monitoring eye of the malls' security
police, who were out in force with foreheads furrowed
and walkie-talkies crackling. The runners were
accused of disrupting business, warned that they were
trespassing and threatened with arrest, but no one
was cited, which was an improvement from the last
time the hashers ventured into these parts.
"We had to clean all the
flour and chalk marks from the parking lot before
they let us go," said the woman who was the hare
for that event. "It could have been worse. It
would have been worse, except that one of our members
is an official with the Orange County district
attorney's office. It's nice to have hashers in high
places."
Information: (562) 427-4488. Or
visit the group's Web site: www.socal.hash.org
Copyright, The
Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times, 1997