Attribution: DelmerViramontes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis having weathered out of a drive to the middle of the state Saturday found themselves with a daylong opportunity to stay off the stormy roads and do something worthwhile. Phyllis did some organizational work with members …
Read
Category:Family
Kickass and Uncle Ralph
The Pen in Hand Blog featuring Bill Stokes
Attribution: Sheldon Dick, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lancaster_Co.,_PA._Enos_and_Herbert_Royer_and_farm_hands_eat_dinner,_Royer_farm,_1938_by_Sheldon_Dick.jpg
Kickass and Shot in the Eye
Attribution: Rhcastilhos. And Jmarchn., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper starting the day with the VA eye clinic deciding whether or not he needs yet another shot in the eye to protect him from the advance of the macular degeneration that was so generously handed off …
Read
Kickass and Screens
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop, advises the keeper and Phyllis that their constant company of senior citizens can be enriched by an occasional exposure to members of a different age group as represented by the recent visit of Maverick and Holden who demonstrated how the meaning of life is in …
Read
Kickass and Visit of Boo
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, gives the floor to the keeper and Phyllis to pass on the verity that sandwiches climb into a rarefied culinary class when they are delivered and prepared by a son and granddaughter—Mike and Sarah who also brought along Boo the aging little schnauzer who …
Read
Kickass and Model T Touring
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper unhappy that he is not up in northern Wisconsin riding around the north woods in a Model T Ford with Phyllis’s son Kevin and his wife Colleen at the annual week-long “Doughty” summer Model T tour originated many years ago by …
Read
Kickass and the River
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis joining part of the clan for a first-sweetcorn river-side feast and learning yet another method of communing with the great river as it heads south, having completed its 23-dam work in Wisconsin. That new method is to sit in a …
Read
Kickass and the Family Tree
Attribution: Popular Graphic Arts, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis listening with interest to comments from the keeper’s granddaughter Sarah regarding some of her casual climbing around in her family tree. The branches on her late mother Dora’s side— “Durst” show an illustrious history …
Read
Kickass and Farmer Fishing Days
Attribution: USFWS Mountain Prairie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, is unable to restrain leakage from the keeper’s memory bag: “On rainy summer days when the haymows were full and the corn was nearly at its knee-high-by-the 4th goal, the farmers went fishing. “They tied cane poles to the sides …
Read
Kickass and Woodman’s Calamity
Attritbution: Corey Coyle, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that neither the keeper nor Phyllis were anywhere near the Woodman’s grocery store when the roof fell in, creating an impressive waterfall over the produce department and giving several customers wet feet and presumably damp apples and bananas. News of …
Read
Kickass and River Remembering
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports on some of the keeper’s gang “gathering at the river” on yet another attempt at standardizing clan memories while soaking up warm sunshine and listening to the birds. It is, of course, common that when families get together for “remembering” excesses, there are …
Read
Kickass and a Fishing Lie
Attribution: Photo by Jed Owen on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper in this age of lies and more lies, recalls “The Good Lie,” which was the title of a story of his that appeared in the June 1993 issue of Sports Afield magazine. It was about an old man–Ben Lusby and …
Read