Attribution: Photo by Phyllis Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has always wanted a windmill, and now he finally has one, on the 5th floor Vista West balcony where he and Phyllis reside.
It is a beautiful thing—green, eight feet tall, and looks exactly like the windmills from the keeper’s rural youth. He spends a lot of time watching it twist into the wind and then the blades whirling as if they were on a mission of great importance.
(The windmill came from Korea in a square box and the directions specified that it would take two people 60 minutes to assemble it. Try three days for one person who kept dropping those tiny nuts and bolts until he could no longer bend over to pick them up and Phyllis volunteered to help.)
The keeper’s attraction to his windmill may lie in the fact that it more or less defines his existence—spinning meaninglessly in the wind and doing so with style and enthusiasm.
Photo by Bill Stokes