Thanksgiving...Family and Death

A few weekends ago the Haug clan celebrated the thanksgiving holiday in style. And by style I mean the booming metropolis of San Saba. Most of the fam was gathering, except for a few important people, aka my brother(#1 traitor to Texas) and my sister(#1 traitor of Family gatherings). With the absence of these family members, I decided to class up the reunion with The Roz(who is already loved by my family more than me) and The B(who has been loved by my family more than me since I've known him). We picked up Ben and Zac, loaded up the cars with plenty of ammo and made the trek up north. Upon arrival the boys set up shop in front of the TV, which they would not leave for the duration of the weekend except for carbo loading and and fluid leakage. The weekend was full of stories and laughs, and most importantly, the killing of helpless animals. The B and I set out on Saturday evening to one of the dozen or so properties owned by the Millican family, and set up shop in the blind that B had set up a couple weeks in advance. Because I had been instructed by the B and the owner of the property to take down a young doe, I made quick work of Bambi's sister. And despite what you may think, the deer around San Saba are not nearly as deterred by the sound of a high powered rifle as you might think. The small buck that was accompanying the young lady doe, stuck around to debate whether or not to continue "courting" the recently deceased deer. We were not interested in shooting him because of his youth, so we decided to wait and see what else showed up for us to shoot. Much to our surprise, several other does came out of the woods in the next couple of minutes that really caught our eye. The does also caught the eye of the mourning and still very much "excited" buck. He proceeded to follow the other deer and see if his luck with the ladies might change. B failed to see this because he had already picked up the gun to check out the ladies in his scope. The light was quickly fading and the ability to shoot was wasting away with every waning second. The B decided to shoot at the herd and being the crack shot that he is, dropped the deer on the spot. Upon leaving the blind and approaching the second dead deer, I mentioned to the B that there was a 1 in 8 chance that he had shot the buck that had joined the new arrivals. Needless to say the dead deer was quickly identified as the "rutting" buck that we had been mocking for the past 30 minutes. We rapidly skinned the deer, removed the meat we wanted, threw the deer into the river (as is custom in San Saba), and vowed to keep the baby buck a secret from those that might not have seen the humor in the kill.
The next morning The B and I struck out at before the sun was up to see if we could bag a mountable buck to decorate the Cliffe. We brought with us the reluctant Zac and Jared, and the surprisingly willing Roz. After watching several deer pass by our blind, I decided it was time to introduce Rosalyn to the art of taking helpless life. She seemed ready for it right up until the time I had picked out a victim and told her to take a shot. She decided that the killing was not for her but said she wanted to be witness to me shooting and skinning a deer...weird. After waiting to see my trophy buck, I made up my mind to shoot the next decent sized deer that I saw. Soon after making up my mind, I spotted a very large doe strutting out of the woods only 50 yards away. I located the deer in my sights and asked my partner whether or not I should shoot it. She answered with an emphatic "yes", so I put my finger on the trigger. What she didn't see was the two baby fawns that were following the female only a few steps behind. I began to weigh my options. Do I shoot and pretend I didn't see the youngsters. Do I hope she doesn't care and won't start crying. Or do I ask her again about how she feels about shooting bambi's mommy. I went with the later choice, and it ultimately cost me a kill. When I pointed out the babies, she screamed "no" and hit my arm. This accomplished two things; created a dangerous situation that you can imagine comes with the hitting of someone with a loaded gun, and it scared away all the deer in sight and probably in a 3 mile radius. Despite the blown hunt, I did get one thing out of the morning; I got to listen to the "whispers" of the Roz for several hours (despite being told that talking was strictly forbidden). Oh well.

My Canvas

This past weekend was a memorable one for several reasons. The first reason is because I was able to enjoy the riveting guitar melodies of one Eric Clapton with some of the usual cast of characters (K Haug, Big B, The Roz, Drew, and Rach). The other is for an experience of a lifetime at a certain tattoo parlor known as Atomic Tattoo. Allow me to enlighten you with the truth...no thanks to the lies told by my brother.

The week started with the honorable Sheriff B turning an eye-popping 26 years old(over the hill in my book) and a great idea that he and I would celebrate the down slope of his life with some meaningful body art. We both have been wanting to add to our collection for some time now and we felt that this was as good on occasion as any to do so. We had general ideas of what we wanted; I wanted a powerful word or saying from the word of God to be displayed on my side, while my good friend Bryan debated on a sheriff badge with some form of the letter B on the inside...which after much effort i was able to talk him out of the silly idea, and he settled on a simple B to be tattooed on his back shoulder. The meaningful word that I chose was a Hebrew version of the word Justified, but after much ridicule which included the singing of "I'm going to have you naked by the end of this song" by Drew and Rach, I scratched that idea and again was without an idea nailed down. This turned out to be an OK thing since the tattoo place of choice was quite booked up despite it being a Monday night. After returning feeling very much defeated and disappointed, we received a call from the K Haug who assured us that if we waited until Friday he would most definitely get one with us. Even though I was sceptical of my brother getting yet another tattoo, we agreed to wait. This story really picks back up on Friday when the Pastor Haug rolled in town and we were able to gather a decent crowd to witness the pain and suffering that was sure to follow. As expected my brother did not in fact have a firm decision on a marking of choice, but he insisted this was a problem that could be remedied at the proper time...at the tattoo shop. Upon arrival at Atomic, I quickly forced my way to the front of the motley crew and demanded to go first. I had substituted my previously mocked idea for a great looking Hebrew version of the word Redeemed. I calmly took the chair and proceeded to have a nice man named Eric slowly but surely cut out the ribs on my right side. He did however try and sweeten the deal by offering me a blackberry, which I quickly rejected because I was too concerned with the spear I felt being driven through my ribcage. After what seemed like 3 hours of extremely intense torture, I relieved my place at the tattoo table for one of my companions to occupy. Assured of their intent to follow my lead, the Roz and I went across the street in order to pay for the carving I had just received.

On a side note, as I was minding my own business walking down the Drag, I was pegged by an projectile that I quickly learned was an egg (who does that) thrown by several large men in a passing truck. Although I stood there in disgust, I assured the Roz that I was in fact man enough to have taken them all on if the target had been her face and not my recently tattooed stomach. (I'm pretty sure she didn't believe me).

Back to the issue at hand. As I returned to the shop expecting to find one my close friends or my brother on the table, I was disappointed to find neither. B was still fumbling around aimlessly looking for the perfect font (which he has yet to find), and my brother was busy getting a tattoo history lesson from the man who had bled me like a stuck pig. The bright note was the drawing that "the carver" came up with as an idea for Kendal's forearm. He assured us that this type of tattoo was a much better plan than just walking in with some silly words to put on your body...although is was quite humorous, we were not impressed. Once the man realized that his two other victims were not nearly as manly as me, he reminded us that it was closing time and that he had a 6 year old son to return to (sounded made up to me). The night ended with two things proving themselves as fact: 1. I am the manliest person that i know and 2. LC Rocks is the greatest band since Led Zeppelin. Questioning either of these facts is futile and not worth a response at this time. Deal with it.

My first kill

Despite my love for the outdoors and my history with breaking the necks of helpless bunnies with my boot, I have never officially been hunting. The deer around the world have been calling my name and mocking me for years, and I finally had to shut them up by shooting as many as possible in the face. The setting for my story is San Saba, known more for the size of their pecans than the size of their deer. The cast of characters for this story includes the infamous deer hater "Country" B, the Winston "The Butcher" Millican, and most of the Leif Haug clan who call San Saba home. Perhaps I should start by saying that some of the following story may or may not be completely illegal, and so should not be relayed to any Game Warden friends that anyone may or may not have.

The hunting began in the afternoon with a sighting of several deer from the front porch of the Haug house, which were spooked before Mr. slow motion B could get his weapon ready. After an hour or so staring at a broken feeder, I was feeling a little cold and bored so I decided to find my companion who was hiding in some nearby shrubbery. While sitting on the porch talking about future hunts, Winston comes flying up the dirt road with a friend who's name slips my mind. He proceeds to reassure us that if we proceed to the pecan bottom known by the name of "Lee Harvey Oswald"...or something like that, we will be certain to kill at least 30 deer a piece. This is where the story picks up a momentum.

Because the darkness was quickly approaching, we hauled tail to the pecan bottom in search of death and destruction. Although the stories of epic hunts by the Winston were exaggerated, the deer were still quite plentiful all around the field. Having rumbled over the terrain in search of the perfect kill, The B and I spot several helpless little deer nibbling on pecans and looking eerily like Bambie's mom. This of course did not slow me down and I proceed to take one of the sweet little ladies out with a perfect shot to the shoulder. We leave the deer in search of more carnage (this is where it might be important for your visualization to understand that we were still in the truck...which I had shot out of the window of), and spot a herd of about 20 deer frolicking around unaware of the F150 that was driven by a pure killer also known as Sheriff B. We whip the truck around and set up B for a perfect shot, the only problem is that there is about as much light as the inside of Drew's butt crack. After some encouragement to shoot despite his inability to see anything, B shoots and nicks the deer...in the toe I think. The deer eventually dies, which I still think was because she had a heart attack thinking about the amazing shot only a few minutes earlier that dropped her sister in her tracks. Now that is was too dark to shoot anything else, we moved on to the more gruesome part of the hunt, the skinning. For this task we brought in the professional, Winston "The Butcher" Millican. After making quick work of the carcasses, the Sheriff and I threw the leftovers into the river (which I was almost castrated for calling a creek). No more deer were seen for the rest of the trip, although we did see a Panther...but that is a different story.

Telephone Pictionary

Very recently I was introduced to a fabulous new game that the patrons of Rufus have grown to know and love. The game was off to a rough start after a failed attempt by the Haug to use the game as space filler for Big B's Youth group at HCBCUT. My brother Kendal had given me faulty instructions that resulted in a lot of waiting around and starring blankly at somebody as they tried to draw or write something creative. After a stellar introduction to the real game by Kendal during a family/friend gathering, I was ready to introduce everybody I came across to the newly fascinating game. In order to tell the story and for anybody to get it, I will briefly describe the game and try and give you an idea of why it has quickly become our favorite game at Rufus. The game can be played with as many people as you want, but it seems to work best with about 8 people. Everybody needs a pen and as many pieces of paper as their are players in the game. The first round starts with everybody writing a word or phrase and then passing the stack of paper to the person next to them. The next round consists of looking at the paper to see what the previous person came up with, and drawing what is written to the best of your ability. This alternating of drawing and writing usually leads to a botching of the original word or phrase and always leads to a good time reviewing the progression of the cards.

Now that the stage is set, I must tell you about the most recent episode of telephone pictionary that was played out at Rufus. The company was entertaining in itself, including the usual characters of the Haug, Big B, B real, The Roz, The Watts, The Drew, Rach and was enhanced by the addition of the Roz's sister and husband (Camille and Marcos). As usual, frannie the fire bowl was in full affect, and the new addition of a coffee maker (aided by some Baileys) helped to heat up the coldest night of the year thus far. The game started off well with several ridiculous drawing and outlandish interpretations. However the game was taken to a new level when we got to the end of the the second round to discover the awesome progression that had started with none other than Ms. Rosalyn Perry (special lady friend). The cards went something like this, after a prompting from The Haug to write something that she could see, the Roz writes out nothing else but the name of the Haug himself (yes I know, isn't she cute). The next card created by Marcos was a likeness of myself that included big exclamation marks coming out of my mouth (I could only interpret this to mean that he felt I was a little loud...oh well). B real was up next and thought that the crazy loud person in the drawing could be nobody else but the Roz herself( I could only interpret this to mean that he felt she was a little loud...oh well). The Drew saw the name Rosalyn and began to draw a picture of the Roz in the sweater she was wearing at the time (real original Drew). This drawing was correctly recognized by The B as the loudest patron of Rufus (Roz), which he described as "drunk Rosalyn". The Watts (or 1.21 jiggawatts to those who love her) thought that the best way to sum up her good friend the "drunk Roz" was to draw a girl with a HUGE open mouth with musical notes and exclamation marks coming out. Now a normal person might be confused by this drawing or mistakenly guess Gene Simmons, but not The Haug. I instantly recognized the picture to be the likeness of the sweet yet over the top lady that has recently become the Haug's main squeeze. Lets just say that the game has forever been ingrained in the hearts of the rufus Ruffians. More to come.

Allow me to reintroduce myself..

My name is Josh Haug, but my friends call me The Haug. I am a Teacher and a Coach at Canyon Ridge Middle School. I love sports of all kinds, music of all kinds, and Hanging out at Rufus. A little about Rufus; it is a lovely establishment in a shady part of town that 3 young bachelors call home. It is full of holes in the walls and good times inside and out. The bachelors that I am referring to are the honorable Sherrif B and the vuluptuous B Real. We are all founding members of the hottest thing on the campus of UT; Hill Country Bible Church UT. God is doing big things in our lives and we are doing crazy things at Rufus that need to be documented in some way. Following the lead of K Haug and the Box, I have started this blog to keep anybody and everybody up to date and entertained along the way. Enjoy.