Verse of the Day for 12-23-20

Hashers Relaxing in the Tri-Delta Sorority Kitchen. From left to right: Brian (who had to work and couldn’t join us this morning and whom we nevertheless still love), Me (back when I was half the man I am today), and Kim, who is a guy.
Annual Hayshers' Reunion Breakfast, 12-23-20
For Kim (But not for Brian, who stood us up. Again.)

Old friends and eggs (and lox) --
Meaningful, meandering talks --
A year in the making,
this bread-breaking
is ever a pleasure for me.

Twenty-sevenish years ago, my friend Kim (a dude) watched idly from the sidelines as I debated a bevy of my mamby-pamby co-religionists in a heated debate that took place in the lobby of the Newman Center at the University of Arizona. Beleaguered by fools and appeasers who maintained that morality could not be legislated, I — like noble Aragorn fending off the Nazgûl on Weathertop– valiantly took on all comers. “Of course you can legislate morality! That’s what laws do! Or do you think murder is only illegal because it’s messy?” (For the record, I don’t think goodness can be legislated, but laws are always a reflection of a society’s morals.)

At the time, the Newman Center was located across the street from the Tri-Delta sorority house where Kim worked as a “hasher” (i.e. dishwasher / slop slinger). Kim was — and still is — a devout Evangelical, but he would frequently pop into the Newman Center to pray. (He’s cool like that.) Anyway, after I vanquished all those ninnies, he — like the mysterious Ranger Strider at the Prancing Pony in Bree — approached.

“I’m on your side,” he said.

“You have a funny way of showing it,” I didn’t.

“My name is Kim Brown. I’m impossibly cool. Wanna be friends? And, yeah, you heard right: I’m a dude named Kim.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

And that, more or less, is how Kim and I became friends. Eventually, he recruited me to work with him at the sorority and that’s where the picture above was taken. Most of the guys who signed up to work as hashers were undependable creeps / frat boys who just wanted to hit on the girls. They would inevitably bail, and when they did, Kim would propose one of his Christian friends as a replacement. The house mother always agreed to bring Kim’s friends on because we always (eventually) got our work done and never hit on the ladies. I forget where she was from, but she always called us “hayshers” instead of “hashers” and that’s what we’ve called ourselves ever since.

I don’t remember when we started meeting up for breakfast, but it’s been an annual tradition for a while now and it’s always a great time. Our hilarious friend and fellow haysher Brian joins us when he can, but he’s very responsible now that he’s no longer in a rock band with Kim. The cat’s in the cradle, Brian.