Truly a Half-Mind...

On May 9, I hit a major milestone: I had been hashing for half of my life and thus had truly become a half-mind. Apparently this term dates back to 1978 when a New Zealand hasher was interviewed and said, “If you have half a mind to hash, that’s all you’ll ever need.” Hashers have proudly called themselves half-minds ever since.

I had originally planned to hare a prom dress hash in Amsterdam that day, but had to shift plans. Instead, Opee helped me pre-lay my trail for a small in-person hash starting at Voorschoten Station. Slippery Edge, On the Edge and their 11-year-old son came down from Amsterdam, and Start Me Up and Give It a Blow came from Hillegom. 

Start Me Up was over seven months pregnant and borrowed one of our neighbor’s bikes to cycle most of the trail. 

I was happy to be able to design a trail that greatly differed from the many trails that Opee had already laid in our area. 

Before our first beer stop, we posed for this socially-distanced photo in front of this truck with the motto: Nothing Really Matters.

We took a quick diversion to see the newborn lambs at the newly opened Van der Valk Boederij (Farm).

I was thrilled that we had recently found this new waterfront path in the field that we had been walking in for over six years. 

This was the first of our balance beam features.

We surprised the group with the arrival of Boar Whore and Tasty Piss in their boat. She even had a hash mask that she’d received in China years ago.  

Rather than join us for the trail, they brought us beer for our second beer stop...

…and then took us two-by-two across the Vliet for the next part of the trail. They then took Start Me Up and her bike down the Vliet to meet us when we crossed back over the bridge into town.