manila hash house harriers

we don't give one, but we know where to find one

hindi kami namimigay ng isa, ngunit alam namin kung saan makakahanap ng isa

removing the mystery of mh3 births

from last century's dekada 80s and for most of its existence mh3 held fast to the phantasy that  it was hashdumb's auldest bastard/illegitimate pack. it neither knew nor cared about its provenance. despite growing evidence of its ancestry the pack kept eyes wide shut on the date and circumstance of its birth.

actually, mh3 had two births.

first iteration:

ratcatcher, out of jakarta h3,  laid trail from the bar at  maynila nomad sports club, merville park, paranaque at 6pm on sun21may72. this is acknowledged to be the inaugural trail in maynila. 

the pack was mostly nomad football players, who ratcatcher convinced to hash in order to keep fit during the off-season. 

trails were irregular & un-numbered,  and no records were kept. 

paper chasing went into hibernation around sep72, when marcos declared martial law, with its restrictions on group gatherings, & nightly 11pm-4am curfew.  

this was confirmed by two oral affidavits by ratcatcher. the first when he appeared unannounced at the ononon for 1350, 20nov00, at l.a cafe, ermita, where the pack was celebrating what it thought was its 25th anniversary. he announced mh3 was three years late. a few aulde pharts had suspected this, but mishmanagement aggressively clung to the myth that mh3 was hashdumb's auldest bastard hash - i.e., mother & father unknown. 

anyway, "those who said they knew something couldn't be certain, and those who were certain couldn't be trusted". 

ratcatcher's second oral affidavit was given at maynila nomad sports club's 100th anniversary, 06dec14, when an impromptu circle feted him as founding father and made a lavish presentation, at the same bar from which he haired the first un-numbered trail almost 40 years earlier.

second iteration:

david jenkins  recalled in jan13 that he had no knowledge of ratcatcher's pioneering effort: "i thought i founded the manila hash with turkey tom noonan in april 1975. there was no sign or sight of any earlier hhh. now, a counter view suggests mh3 was founded a few years earlier by indonesian pirates, but they wimped out and fled soon after. we tossed a coin to see who would be first grand master. i lost, so it was me. followed after a year by turkey." 

the jenkins-noonan  second iteration occurred at 6pm on mon28apr75 from bahay ni noonan at 1733 banyan, dasmarinas ville. this is acknowledged as the first numbered and recorded trail of mh3 (now named). trail numbers are anchored on that event; there has never been any appetite for reckoning the number of un-numbered trails under ratcatcher.

neither jenkins nor noonan had trailed previously, and neither was known to the pack when it celebrated what it believed to be its 25th anniversary. so the "bastard" epithet was correct at the time.