Kickass and No Air Conditioning by Bill Stokes

Attribution: Reinhold Möller, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Bill Stokes

Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in welcoming this hot, hot day of July 27, 2023, and allows him to reminisce about a childhood when the only air conditioning was riding in the back seat of a Model A Ford going 45 mph with all the windows rolled down.

This came with an unfortunate risk in that the keeper’s father “chewed” tobacco–“Copenhagan” snuff, and occasionally he would unthinkingly spit out the driver’s front window with some of the spray coming in through the rear windows where the keeper and his sister and brother were riding.

The keeper has memories of this being a cause of family dissention a time or two, with a much-displeased mother and chagrinned father trying to comfort their offended kids.

The keeper’s father was a kindly man and a loving father who spent most of his life hooked on the filthy habit of “chewing.” He would never intentionally spit on his own children, and it is perhaps unfortunate that the keeper remembers how it happened in the name of his father’s “Copenhagen” addiction.

Sorry, Dad, the memory is intended only to enhance the appreciation of the keeper and Phyllis and everyone for the air-conditioned world they take for granted as global warming becomes global baking.