Hashing

A friend and I  were sitting on our front step having a glass of sangria the other evening when a few runners started to pass by the house. Soon the trickle turned to flood but they weren’t the typical stream-line, spandex-clad crowd. Some had dread locks and beards or were running in cargo pants, and a number of them looked very out of shape.  So we finally started asking them what the occasion was. Was there a race or something?
“We’re running for Jesus!” one guy yelled over his shoulder. “Because it’s a good night to run!” someone else said. Eventually a jogger stopped and told us there were about 200 people gathered behind our house drinking beer in the alley and we left our stoop to investigate.
We walked out our back door and sure enough, a van had pulled up behind our place, a couple folding tables had been set up and about 200 people were drinking Yuengling out of plastic cups, eating oreos and doritos, milling about, talking and carrying on.  So we joined the party and discovered that they were a random group of people called “hashers” who basically run and drink beer every Thursday. They have a website and each week someone scouts out a route, starting at a metro stop somewhere in the city and ending (hopefully) in an obscure alley where no one will notice or call the police.  And honestly, if no one had told us, we never would have known they were out our back door. We hung out, drank beer and chatted with folks for thirty minutes or so until we heard a siren and someone alerted the hashers that the police had arrived.  Immediately the tables were broken down, the van was packed up and the crowd disappeared. The alley was completely empty in a matter of seconds– no trash, no plastic cups, nothing.