In Memoriam; Bea Ross - Funeral Saturday 9 November

Bea accepts accolades from the Mufti at the 31st Anniversary Hash, June 2013

Bea Ross died at home on Friday 25 October 2013.  Her three daughters have scheduled a funeral mass for Saturday 9 November at 11:00am at St. Theresa Church in Ashburn, followed by a reception at the River Creek Club in Leesburg.  They'll be updating her Facebook page Wednesday or Thursday 30/31 October, and expect to have an obituary in the Washington Post this weekend.

To Bea or Not to Bea hosted the hash numerous times at her home in Ashburn, and always offered us a great party with a generous buffet.  For this year's anniversary hash, she made nine pounds of Southern-style barbecue spareribs.

One of my favorite Bea memories:  at a McLean hash at Cocked and Loaded and Queen Cobra's, I set a walkers' route that included a narrow bit of trail on a ledge above the Potomac.  Bea was one of two walkers who followed the set path, and she came back saying, "I'm terrified of heights, and that bit along the river was awful for me.  But I didn't look down and I kept moving, and I did it!"

When she first got sick late this summer, she asked for ice cream.  Blow in the Hole and I found that Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia met her sodium restrictions and brought a pint - she loved having it, though was pleased to have BitH spoon feed her as she was seriously exhausted by her illness.

Please feel free to share your memories, either in the comments section below or via e-mail to me.  I'll post them as I get them.

In February 2013, at Phoenix Rising's hash.

In March 2013, at Easy Strider's.

GFH3 Run #1,721; 19 October 2013

Nobody tells me nuffin.

GFH3 Run #1,720; 12 October 2013

Riley's first set!  Maria's cooking!  I know this one was great.  Details, please.  I do so want details, suffering as I am so very far from you.

In March 2014, Chip Off the Old Dick provided details as follows:

A coterie of ragamuffins gathered Saturday afternoon to celebrate the end of our fall flooding.   An intimate group – ten walkers and ten runners or so – gun shy from an eventful week of rain (more than six inches at Dulles from Monday through Saturday) gathered at a dry start near the USGS.  We appear to continue the trend of small fall turnouts.  [you fools – Maria’s cooking, and you’re not there?  -ed]

Co-hare Phoenix Rising jumped in the breach to set what seems to be his eighth trail in ten weeks. Some retirees move to Florida, some play golf ; apparently PhR plans and sets trails with his free time.  In atypical CoToD fashion the usually subversive co-hare revealed at chalk talk that this was to be an A to B .... necessitated by the looming threat of afternoon rain and little overhead cover at A.  Bags were loaded into the Phoenix Wagon ... en route to B the co-hares checked in to verify the small group was staying together, including Bad Dog/Perseverance keeping pace nicely through the first part of townhouse zig-zagging.  Wagon continues to B with beverages in tow.   As Mama put the finishing touches on food prep, Riley slept like, well, .... a baby.

Back on trail, the tiny pack of runners, mostly together, made through trail and neighborhoods around Dogwood Elementary School, then snaked though assorted apartments and townhouses before moving east-southeast, crossing (underneath) Reston Parkway.  The pack explored what the trail system associated with Snakenden Branch had to offer.  Very little?  It's woodsy trails only at this point as the pack looped around and ON IN with a tame trail (Manic Mechanic's Garmin said six miles), ending at the Pony Barn Pavilion. Seemed that Easy Strider was first to arrive and Perserverance made it before nightfall, as he always does, getting ready for his epic celebration the following week.

Well-rested Riley joined in with Just Susan for a family affair feast. We had just enough rain for the co-hares to validate their decision to go A to B (and isn’t that the purpose of having at least one hare with a degree in psychology) for a covered location.  After a quick clean up, the remaining walkers and runners were shuttled back to start.  Many thanks for the flexibility and cooperation everyone showed in offering rides and bringing out their personal sun to a soggy, soggy week.

 


Photos from other lands:

 

  

  

  

 

GFH3 Run #1,719; 5 October 2013

Who, where, how far; someone fill me in, please.

For instance, did you see any wildlife on trail?

PS:  Blow in the Hole, I hope you didn't stay up all night waiting for me to post.  I was in the wild, without interwebs.

GFH3 Run #1,718; 28 September 2013

UPDATE from BC3, with my sincere thanks:

"A smallish group had a convivial time crossing the bridge into Maryland and a really nice walking trail -- paved & wooden in a woods buffer zone... lovely. ...a number of folks were wearing Mufti Appreciation shirts."

It had to be great, right?  Great location, experienced hares, and the weather was good, right?  Anyone have anything to add?  I can't say much, as I was distracted by the talent show at the Kalona Fall Festival, featuring:

Jim from China, who got the crowd on its feet with his amazing beat-box act;

Husband and wife, maybe, doing a Sugarland cover;

A clog dancer performing to some sexier-than-you'd-expect-in-Amish-country song; and

Two quite young and sophisticated boys performing 'Build Me Up Buttercup' with word-perfect intro patter.

So someone's going to need to fill me in...

GFH3 Run #1,717; 21 September 2013

Hands up if you ate so bloody much pizza, in response to Hash Hero Chugger's pleas, that you may never walk again.  Pity, because the walking around Chugger's place in Great Falls is lovely, even in intermittent showers that eventually (as today) settle down to a steady rain.  "We need this rain," Rough Cut pointed out, with truth if not originality.

And certainly the 20 or 25 hashers present today looked revived and refreshed and soaked through as they arrived, pretty well grouped together, back at the cool, dry garage they'd departed an hour or so earlier.  (Incidentally, the group included Mini Schlonga, back from interhashing through Europe.)  Chugger and Phoenix Rising are to thank for taking a lesson from last week and ensuring they placed checks everywhere there needed to be a check, and a few extra places, too.  That diligence kept the pack mostly packed as they raced along a mostly off-road trail.  As promised in the brief, they crossed no major roadways; "Springvale," Chugger clarified, "is not a major roadway."

Someone in this group is thinking, "Oho!  So we head west..."

The walkers split into two about-equal groups, one sticking to pavement (street-walkers, heh heh) while the other headed into the homeowners' association-maintained woodsy trail around a little pond and up a good hill and then the wrong direction somehow or other to miss the second part of the woods trail.  Oh, well.  Kylie and Abby don't like to stay out in the wet too long, anyway.

Back at the garage, there was a spread you wouldn't believe, with fancy sandwiches on seeded bread and ciabatta warm from the oven, and fruit and cheese and chips and homemade cole slaw (very excellent) and other salad-like items...  and those were the appetizers!  Dominos delivered about 1,000 pizzas minutes later, each one a different set of toppings, including fancy things like banana peppers and spinach, and mainstays like ham and pineapple and just pepperoni.  Easy Strider:  "Snausages!" (imagine boyish grin and thrilled intonation).  And only later did the dessert trays come out, laden with pastries.

Plus stacks and stacks of pizzas off the the right somewhere.

Mufti called the roll for this, run number 1717.  Get it?  The double 17s?  Ooooh.  PhR and Chugger and Trish got well-deserved applause, and while I didn't actually hear her, I can't imagine Paint in the Ass didn't urge everyone to make the trek to Maryland next Saturday.  It's a great location for both running and walking, and well worth the trip.

Along about 5pm, with Chugger urging people to take home some leftovers, PhR went out into the wet in his old Volvo to find Spurt.  The expletive-deleting rain had washed away some chalked X's, but not the mistakenly-laid, flour checks those X's were designed to keep people from finding.  So Spurt was way off where he shouldn't have been, and willing to take PhR's taxi service.  Remember, everyone, that sidewalk check is designed to wash away easily.  Anyway, Spurt should have worked up enough of an appetite on all that extra trail to take care of the extra pizza...

Here's what it looked like up until the camera battery died.

GFH3 Run #1,716; 14 September 2013

What a very special treat for the runners:  Gurr's Hill and Oleta's Hill in the same trail.  "Ole Fud insisted we have both," Phoenix Rising explained.  "I don't know what it's called, but there was a hill that was really sucky and it really hurt and I thought I was going to pass out," Blow in the Hole reported.  "That's Gurr's Hill," Ole Fud said with confidence.

So O.F. and Strac insist the trail they set was about four miles, maybe a bit more.  PhR believes that, setting all the false trails, his total run this morning was about six miles.  Every runner who managed the true trail asserts, via GPS reading or just that unpleasant feeling in the lungs and quadriceps, that she or he slogged nine miles, give or take a few tenths.  The term "death march" rattled about the On In.  It was all great fun for the casual observer, heightened by the general gorgeousness of the weather and the specific gorgeousness of the Fuds' landscaping, which soon had even the most exhausted of the pack succumbing to the beauty of Great Falls in the sunshine.

It's a running club.  Someone run!

The group took a bit of time to gather -- this first Saturday thing is so confusing -- but once there were about 30 ready to go, O.F. offered a military brief, with comments on infantry and artillery, and wisecracks from draft-dodger PhR.  Then the pack circled about the first check, tried this way and that way, and eventually more-or-less headed down the driveway.  Chip Off the Old Dick rather brilliantly thought to ask for guidance, and subsequently headed straight out the back gate, shouting, "On on!" until a couple people heard him and the slow turning toward true trail began.  Suck Squeeze Bang leaped out of her car and noted that for once, arriving late paid off.  Through the woods, up the street, and to the third check, at an intersection, for several minutes' milling and jogging long ways in wrong directions and muttering imprecations, before they headed toward Runner Road and another eight miles or so to go.

They're so small.  How much shoulder do they need?

The walkers, meanwhile, splintered:  some headed down the drive and along the paved pathways; others followed instructions and the runners' trail as far as Arnon Chapel, whose dog-unfriendliness inspired a few 180-degree turns.  It took a while, but eventually everyone met up again, with a handful of sitters and latecomers, on the deck, where Felicity served up a perfectly-dressed quinoa salad and a pasta salad that were ideal for the weather.  PhR chose the beer, so it was heavy on IPAs and Yuenglings.

The Mufti called the roll:  double ones and double fours for Zipperhead (1144, you see), and 99 to the cup for John, Jay and Mike.  Politicking madly, the Mufti insisted his "and a great run"s were offered "with trepidation," but cheers resounded through the quickly cooling air.

Still figuring out the new camera; rather overexposed photos are on view here.