The Chase is Afoot

Back when I was in high school, a very interesting social network somehow formed. Nobody was really sure who the members of this group were as they were pretty much self-declared. Nor were there any apparent leaders; in fact, no one had any clear idea of who founded the organization. Nonetheless, it was not long before the high school administration became concerned that a local chapter of the HSJ, "The Horny Sons of Jerusalem”, had been established within the student body.

As far as anyone could tell, the sole purpose of this organization was to orchestrate the annual “HSJ Nude Relays”. Held each year during a warm spring evening after school at an undisclosed location, the school would become abuzz over the anticipated event. Someone even circulated the club’s alleged logo; an erect “flying” penis, sporting a set of Roman god, Mercury style wings. Fanciful versions of the HSJ logo could be glimpsed penciled on the back of notebooks or book covers. Cute.

Of course, due to the evocative nature of the HSJ’s principal activity, to avoid the authorities, the precise whereabouts of the “relays” was announced strictly by word-of-mouth, usually the day of the alleged event. Not surprisingly, as the word spread like a chain reaction through the school, it wasn’t long before the school administrators would seize upon this intelligence… which they then passed on to the local police department.

As fate would have it, though, gossip mills the following morning told of how the local police had been thwarted in a fruitless attempt to locate and bust the HSJ Nude Relay participants and “supporters”. (Yes, pun intended) Apparently skittish that the cops might have been tipped, the Relay had been postponed at the last second… another time and location to be announced.

Before long word would again spread of another HSJ Nude Relay, the school would once again pass the info on to the cops…only to find themselves yet again on another Wild Goose Chase.

This cycle repeated for weeks before the school administration and police began to suspect that there may not actually be any Horny Sons of Jerusalem or clandestine Nude Relays.

What is most remarkable about this story is that large groups of people actually BELIEVED this organization was reality. School officials wanted to believe there was an organization that was promoting students to naked through the streets of town. Their belief lent credibility to the cops who were no less in a position to doubt the school administrators. So fueled by hormone charged adolescent imagination, the HSJ took flight even though it didn’t really exist.

Yeas later when I was out of state in college my mother sent me a clipping from the local town newspaper. The article described that police had been tipped to be on the lookout for naked runners in the streets, apparently part of an organization of local high school students called the “Sons of Jerusalem”. (The newspaper editor obviously dropped the word “horny”). The torch, as it were, of a noble tradition had been on passed to the next generation.