This past Sunday I found myself wearing a red dress and running in circles around the Amato’s parking lot (the one off St. John), cold and a little buzzed.
You may be wondering, “Was she on drugs?”
Um, no. Let me introduce you to a little club called PorMe H3, Portland’s chapter of Hash House Harriers, a theatrical bunch bonded over the fact that they mostly drink and kinda run….in circles, up hills, in rain, in snow. They follow trails in order to drink. I was not familiar with them, but I should have guessed I was up for trouble when my roommate walked out of his room in drag—purple tights and a hideous strappy red dress. And running shoes.
I was sipping my vanilla soy café au lait, and some how I ended up saying, “Yes, I have a red dress.”
The best advice my father ever gave me was, “Say yes to everything, and see where it leads you.” I think he was speaking metaphorically, but here I was with my roommate, sprinting through the West End in our red dresses, accumulating other strange members of PorMe H3 along the way to Pizza Villa on Congress Street.
Pizza Villa was full of men and women—dressed in unfortunate 80’s red prom garb—pre-gaming with pitchers of PBR. I was pouring beer into a pint glass at 1:30 pm on Sunday afternoon. I was dubbed “Virgin Betsy,” a prefix given to every newbie-hasher. I learned lots of strange things like, “If you point with your finger or point with your elbow, we will make you drink.” I was introduced to everyone by their hash names, each raunchy in its own twisted way….leave it up to your imagination.
I was overwhelmed with the drinking and the running, so when all the hashers ran wildly up State Street, I split for the refuge of my warm house.
PorMe H3 meets every Sunday at various drinking holes, and you can find them on Facebook under “Portland Hashers” or e-mail them at portlandhashers@gmail.com. If you can drink….and run….sometimes in a dress in 40 degree weather….this group is for you.