Joe Concha

Here are two factors about the Hunt to remember when trying to distinguish one Hunt from another (and another) two months or two years from now:

1) Weather will play a huge role on separating one Hunt experience from the other. For example, 2006 was the muddiest Hunt ever, while 2007 was one of the warmest. 2005 was miserable because of the rain that somehow came from the ground up (like in the Vietnam scene in Forrest Gump). 2004 was much like 2008 -- with perfect temps that allowed people to go more J. Crew, Banana and Brooks Brothers route in terms of scarves, hats and jackets, or so I'm told. 

Believe it or not, years from now you won't remember much about this year's Hunt outside of the weather unless some extraordinary event had transpired (more on that in a tic). It’s not unlike most of the dozens of weekends you’ve spent at the shore. Ultimately, all Hunts will mesh into a handful of images with no time stamp attached.

2) Who you saw outside the group you traveled there with: Nine percent consisted of old friends who you haven't seen in a very long time. You ran into lots of people like this, of course, but this nine percent consists of those you genuinely enjoyed seeing and speaking to again.

So when you look back on, say... the 2003 Hunt, where the weather was fairly unmemorable (no rain, no mud, no wind, low pollen count), you might remember that one ex-girlfriend or best friend of an older brother/sister you happened to bump into completely out of nowhere.

And then there's the other 91 percent of the kind of people you can meet: The hook-up, the phone number or business card that led to said hook-up, or the hook-up that happened during the Hunt in some sketchy manner usually reserved for the dance floor at Edgar's or the Madison.

Either way, nothing else will supercede this conquest in your memory of the day: Not the food, not the liquor, not the buses that took you there, not the traffic you hit on the way out, not the outfit you wore, not the obligatory fight that broke out between plots poaching each others alcohol.

But you will remember that temporary partner like they were a member of your own family. We have all and continue to do the random encounter periodically or all the time. But a Hunt encounter, whether it was only first base on the bus on the way home like Junior High or something that requires RU-486 the morning after, is filed away under a special folder in our system.

Don't ask why...just search your feelings, Lord Vader...you'll know it to be true.

And that's the memo...

Here's your two-minute drill on this year's Hunt:

8:00 AM- arrive at Moorland Farms via car to drop off the liquor only to be told we're not allowed on the grounds yet. What? it's not like the roads need to be street cleaned or anything. Get out of the way Roscoe!

8:07 AM- Panic sets in knowing that an angry-but-harmless-if-you-know-me email was sent to the 115 people who were attending my spot NOT to be late for the bus or suffer the consequences under my "Every Child Left Behind" policy. In my email/warning, I stated under no uncertain terms that our Leprechaun Lines buses would be leaving at 9:40 AM on the nose, and now I was going to be late to my own wedding, so to speak.

Would the group revolt and leave me behind?

8:09 AM- I realize I have 17 admission tickets on me for those taking the bus, thereby eliminating the fear indicated at 8:07 AM.

8:45 AM- The caterers finally finish up so we’re finally able to get back to Hoboken from Far Hills for the bus ride from Hoboken back to Far Hills. Got it?

Cautionary tale: Don’t let your kids grow up to be Hunt organizers.

9:39 AM: We arrive back at the Lucky Charms buses in Hoboken. After a quick solo cups run for the mimosas on the bus (trust me…you’ll always forget something), we’re off and running around 10 AM once everything and everyone gets situated.

10:55 AM: Traffic is typical but not overwhelming. Turnout for such a nice day used to be much higher, but today looks to have about 40,000 in attendance as opposed to the 50,000 levels as seen in the past. Perhaps the thousands of Hoboken411 readers followed Perry Klaussen’s lead and stayed home to listen to their police scanners all day. Or maybe, like Perry, they were exhausted from reminding everyone they were working on their birthday.

In honor of Klaussen, they should add the following to the script of The 40-Year-Old Virgin II:

"You know how I know you’re gay?"

"You’re a GUY and you remind people it’s your birthday every year just to get cheap attention."

You stay classy, 411...

11:20 AM: After some confusion with parking our bus we finally arrive at the plots. The other bus had no such parking issue, so they were already well-situated. But to my horror upon surveying the alcohol there were only maybe, maybe 1.5 bottles of half-gallon Grey Goose left of the SEVEN I purchased.

While I knew this crew wasn't exactly the moderate drinking type, I also knew it was physically impossible to drink that kind of liquor in less than an hour without someone either winding up dead or convulsing like the Mom in HBO's True Blood who gets her demon exercised in a trailer park (the fifteen of you who have seen the show know what the hell I'm talking about).

Anyway, it didn't take long for reports to start coming in of the white trash element next to us taking liberty with just about anything we had before and after our arrival.

Terrific...just when you think the Hunt was the last beacon of hope for everything civilized and anything-but Jersey cheese, you get a bunch of ill-prepared deadbeats who pack two cases of Miller Lite cans and wonder how the hell they ran out by 11 AM.

The problem now was that we couldn't actually prove the theft. In the end they'll just deny it, or say they only poured one drink accidentally from our nearby bar. And without surveillance tape or a matching black glove, we were screwed in the evidence department.

Solving the problem was more important than placing blame at this point. If this was the shore, there would never be a problem in these situations...that was simply one phone call away to Spring Lake Liquors (who can deliver anything in less than 20 minutes). But this obviously was a tad trickier because of the lack of access for outside deliveries (picture trying to get a pizza delivered to a Yankee game).

Still, the old saying is you don't know what you can get until you ask for it, so I called the caterer for lack of a better idea. Miraculously, they were able to bring seven more bottles of vodka via golf cart about an hour later. If this wasn't the coolest way to have the clear stuff delivered to a spot in the middle of a farm with thousands of people around, I'd love to see what is.

12:45 PM: Someone asks me why I didn't get a griller or DJ for my plots as opposed to sandwiches, subs, and the sound of conversation. I politely explain that the Far Hills Race rules clearly state that grilling is banned due to the massive amounts of hay around that tends to be flammable at the slightest spark, and that any music above a reasonable level is absolutely out of the question as declared by the powers that me.

On cue, two other people point in the direction of about 15 plots down to the disco dance party and super BBQ that belongs to the Jamie Moyer of Hunt spots, Kevin F. (I mean that as a compliment).

In short, KF pulled off at least three major rule violations simultaneously (the third being the one against no more than 3 consecutive plots designated to one person).
This led me to believe that the Hunt may have been a little hard-up for cash and were willing to look the other way in order to keep everyone happy (the law was was much more strictly enforced in years' past). But in the anything-goes era of 2008, KF's spot achieved the impossible: Getting white people to dance before dark, and on dirt and hay, no less. Kudos.

And a possible model for next year, I thought.

Not that my plots weren't a bastion of fun, either. 8-on-8 cups was a non-stop event by various teams the entire day, and the food appeared to be a hit (or at least a necessity). Simple appeared to suffice, too.

1:09 PM: A trip to the toilet was absolutely in order. As they also say, "You don't drink beer, you rent it." So off I went to the infamous port-a-johns on the eastern end of the infield.

Sure, I let the secret out on their expedited piss-friendly nature in my last article, but who the fuck could figure out where the eastern end of the field was after a few cocktails? It's like saying, "I went out on the eastern end of Hoboken last night." Without a street address or cross street, this usually means absolutely nothing.

But apparently everyone was carrying a compass on Saturday...

The jig was up. The drain dream was over. The lines looked like something out of the Lincoln Tunnel helix on a Wednesday at around 8:15 in the morning. They weren't terribly deep (maybe 7-8 people) but compared to seeing one, sometimes none per potty made the experience feel like a lifetime.

No joke: I even overheard someone complain that she had "read a story" about there being no lines in this area. Power of the pseudo-press, I guess...

3:30 PM: It is this time of day that begins to feel like the Adam Sandler's "Click". You know...the movie where he can fast-forward through any part of his life?

Anyway, time between 3:30 and 5:30 at the Hunt might as well be on fast forward (with four >>>> bars on the screen) because it takes something like four minutes to complete two hours in real time. And it is this time flying while you're having fun that brings people back to the Hunt over and over again. Rarely, if ever, will you see someone complaining about being bored or wanting to take the train back early if they make it to the FF plateau of post 3:30.

A grand idea of mine is have another Hunt that happens in early June when days are near their longest. Could you imagine the stories you'd get out of this thing if it were extended to 9 o'clock at night instead of 5:30 when things really begin to get sloppy? Think of the potential!

5:45 PM: A few people can't find the bus, the usual delays occur, no one seems to care to much because nothing is moving anyway (a one-lane road and 40,000 people is never a good combination).

7:12 PM: Text message comes through that one girl who was on our bus was last seen disheveled and exiting the bathroom with some random dude on a NJ Transit train heading back to Hoboken. I never name names (or at the very least, assign close ones like "Karen Garrity" when her name is really "Taryn Harrity"), but if you knew this girl, this kind of behavior (which I completely advocate) is very uncharacteristic.

7:45 PM: The trek back to Hoboken is finally complete. The plan by most is to go out for Round II until 2:00 AM. I, unfortunately, had to go to work in five hours (welcome to life in national cable news) and needed to sleep off whatever it was in my system.

As I began to doze off, I checked the email on my blackberry a final time. One message was from a girl who came to on our bus and to our plot despite having three kinds and a fourth on the way in less than two months. Still, it seemed she would never miss the day outside of actually going into labor the morning of it:

"Thanks so much for another wonderful year. Hopefully I can find someone to watch four children next year and continue my Hunt days!"

The Hunt isn't by any means a perfect day and many things can go wrong. But the pros always outweigh the cons.

So now the countdown to Memorial Day Friday, May 22, 2008 will commence.

That will be only 217 days away off to the top of my head. 

In the meantime we'll need to find something else to count down to other than a three-day weekend in May that is a whole hockey season away.

Halloween?

Christmas parties?

New Year’s?

The Super Bowl?

Valentine’s Day?

March Madness?

Opening day at the new Stadium?

They all don’t match up, do they?

Before we know it, we'll all be counting down to our kid’s first day of school or that one time a month we can hire a babysitter to get our former lives back for an evening.

Until then, if we aren't already there, we'll have enough distractions to keep the planet mildly interesting.

Joe Concha is realhoboken.com's Senior Writer and has still yet to see a horse on Moorland Farms. Email questions or comments to joe.concha@foxnews.com