(Writeup from October, 2007. Photo from April, 2018)

My first experience with running with a bugle was in 1983, when I was running with the Laurel Highlands Hash. Someone brought a bugle along and handed it to me. With my childhood training as a trumpet player, I could actually play the thing, not just make bleating noises, and I enjoyed running with it. Later, after I joined the Pittsburgh Hash, I visited the Philly hash. I don't know what they do today, but back then they had a round hunting-horn type bugle. Someone always carried it, and down-downs were drunk from the horn.

I got my own horn in the spring of 1985. There was a little woodwind and brass shop on West Liberty Avenue in Dormont, where the parking lot for the T station is now. I paid $20 for it. The guy wanted to polish it up for me and straighten out a bent piece, but I said I liked it just the way it was.

It's a sweet horn musically. It's easy to play. It's pitched about a whole step lower than most other bugles, so when I find another bugler who knows the same calls as I do, we can play a highly dissonant duet.

The horn has accompanied me on 5 Great Races and 8 Pittsburgh Marathons. It did the 100th running of the Boston Marathon with me. When I completed the 100-mile Western State Ultramarathon in 1990, Flame handed it to me a mile from the finish, and I crossed the finish line tooting. It frequently happens that someone I don't know will come up to me and say, "Aren't you the guy who plays the bugle in the Pittsburgh Marathon?" I frequently get interviewed on TV during the race, and in 1995 I had a three-minute interview taped prior to the race.

I was on a hash in 1986 out in Murrysville where I was shortcutting through a patch of rose jaggers, and I was using the horn as a machete to knock down the briars in front of me. After I hacked my way all the way through this patch, I realized the horn didn't have its mouthpiece anymore. I wasn't going back in the briar patch again for any reason. It cost me more to replace the mouthpiece than it originally cost me for the horn.

The brazing that holds the horn together came apart. I gave it to Sole Man to re-weld. A few months later it came apart again. This time I went to a crafts store and bought a roll of "gimp", stretchy plastic string that kids use to make lanyards and key chains out of. I wrapped it around the horn, expecting it to last a few months at most. Well, 15 years later the gimp was still holding up.

At the Philly Interhash of 1987 it dawned on me that items like horns and pisspots were fair game for stealing. We had had our hash flag stolen and returned a couple of times that weekend, but fortunately no one went after my horn. But I've seen Beaver Balls' horn stolen enough times that I know to be very careful, especially at Interhashes. When I went to the San Diego Interhash in 1989, I got some yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape and tied it to my horn so I could carry it on back, but that was awkward. When I went to Waukesha in 1991, I wove the nylon lanyard that's now permanently attached to the horn.

At a Spurt Gun Wars weekend in 1993, the hash concluded with a float down the creek on inflatable rafts. I remember sitting on a raft with the horn in my hand, thinking it was time to put it around my neck in case the raft capsized. At that precise moment Drag Queen and Bwana raided our raft, pushing everyone in the water, and I wasn't holding the bugle any more. The water was knee deep and opaque. I started wading around near where I thought I had lost it, but as time went on I got less and less sure I was even searching in the right place, and meanwhile the rafts were disappearing down the next bend in the creek. I decided to give up, and just as I was stepping out to try to rejoin the rafts, my foot caught in the horn's lanyard!

The horn has received its share of scratches and dents. Once I put it on the roof of my car and drove off, leaving it in the parking lot until someone called me back. Frequently when I have to climb a fence, I just toss the horn over. In the Fall of 2003 I took a bad spill, landing on my bugle, bruising a rib, and bending the horn's bell. I think the odd shape gives the horn character.

In February, 2004, I was carrying changes of clothing in a backpack, and I stuck the bugle in the backpack. I guess I didn't zip it right, because after the second beer stop I realized it was missing. I was ready to give it up for lost. After all, 19 years is a long time to be carrying one bugle around. Maybe it was time to get a brighter and shinier one. But Butt Wipe rightly recognized that a 19 year tradition is actually a reason not to give up so easily, and convinced me to go back with him to where I lost it. We went back the next week, and I was rewarded by the sight of my longtime companion lying just where it had fallen, waiting patiently for me to come back and retrieve it.

In November, 2004, I slipped in the mud and fell. I was carrying the horn under my left arm, and I fell on my back with the horn underneath me. I broke 2 ribs. It also left the bell of the horn rather crushed. A few months later, the metal had become so fatigued that while I was running with it, the bell simply fell off.

I went to the Army-Navy store on Liberty Avenue and I bought a cheap Chinese bugle as a replacement. It cost the same as my original bugle 22 years earlier, but it was a poor substitute. I missed my good horn. So I took the pieces to my friend Jim who repairs brass instruments for a hobby. He managed to straighten out the mangled brass and to fit an internal sleeve so he could weld the horn back together. It looked like hell, until I re-wrapped the gimp around it and covered the joint, and no one could tell.

In January, 2007, the other end of the horn, the part that holds the mouthpiece, fell off. I dug out the Chinese replacement again, and delivered the pieces to Jim again. This time Jim took his time about repairing it. I was impatient to get my old horn back, but as Jim was doing the job for free, I didn't feel good bugging him too often. 8 months later, it was still in pieces.

Moon's mother died in September. She was a veteran of World War II, having been one of the first members of the WACs. She was entitled to military honors, which includes a flag from the President, an honor guard shooting a salute over her grave, and "taps" being played. The trouble is, the military and the American Legion don't have enough buglers to go around, and most military funerals use an electronic bugle for taps. Moon asked if I would play taps for his mother, and I said I'd be delighted and honored.

I really didn't want to play taps on my Chinese bugle, so I called up Jim and explained the situation to him. It was late Wednesday evening and the funeral was Thursday morning. But Jim had previously done most of the preliminary work, and said he'd make an effort to finish it. He called me back later that evening, and I was able to pick up the horn that night.

Several members of Moon's family said to me later that my rendition of taps was the most moving part of the whole funeral.

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