Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis were honored to host Isabella Lyste and her parents Lacy and Dave from the keeper’s hometown of Barron as part of Isabella’s UW Superior project of researching the history of German POWs in Wisconsin toward the end of …
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Category:History
Kickass Remembers December 7th
Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that on this day that “will live in infamy” in FDR’s famous words, it lives on in the keeper’s memory as a ride in the family Model A Ford to stop at Riven Clark’s Standard Oil gas station on Highway 8 to hear …
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Kickass and Civilization History
Attribution: Thomas Shahan, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in wondering if it will be something like the great pyramids, a buried terracotta army, giant Easter Island type stone figures or something else that future anthropologists find to prove that the present “civilization” did indeed exist …
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Kickass and Jimmy’s Birthday
Attribution:Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in marking the 100thbirthday of Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who defined what it means to be a respected and admired member of the human race no matter where you are—a peanut …
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Kickass and Eating Dogs
Attribution: Charles Marion Russell , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper hopes to avoid professional therapy as he adjusts to the new—to him, historical information that the Lewis and Clark expedition bought and ate 193 dogs as a source of protein, and in a diary, Meriwether …
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Dialogues on the Monsters Among Us: Are We Not Men?
Attribution: Vinnytsia , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Mark M., Dave S., Mark O., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter Hey bots, I was flipping around on the TV the other night and happened upon Ordinary Men, a World War II documentary on Netflix. I usually don’t get to watch these …
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Kickass and “Margaret’s War”
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in claiming to have book-scooped Rachel Maddow with her “Prequel” that details the precarious pro-Nazi conditioning that occurred in the US prior to WWII The keeper’s “Margaret’s War,” published two years ago does the same and throws in a love story …
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Time Travels
Photo by Geoff Carter By Geoff Carter My wife and I just returned from a six-week stay in beautiful Mexico. We spent the bulk of that time in Puerto Vallarta, enjoying our time at the public beaches, lounging by the condo pool, soaking up the local culture, and attending the numerous church and Día de …
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Kickass and The Black Hawk War
Attribution: Billwhittaker at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has finally finished his bedtime book: “Blackhawk–The Battle for the Heart of America” by Kerry Trask, history prof emeritus at UW Manitowoc. The book is an incredible work and leaves him–the keeper uniquely conditioned …
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Kickass and Walking on the Moon
Attribution: Illustration by w:en:William Wallace Denslow, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in noting that it has been 54 years since Neal Armstrong walked in the moon, one of those where-was-I-at-the-time remembering events: Phyllis was raising kids and working in a Wisconsin Rapids bank. The keeper was …
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Spirit World
Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Last week, my wife and I traveled down to visit my brother and his wife in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s a long drive, but after we get past the rolling hills of Iowa and the endless horizons of Nebraska, we were awed by the sight of the …
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Kickass and Old Footprints
edmondo gnerre, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, shares the keeper’s respect for science, and also his disappointment when science leaves so many questions unanswered. The recent discovery in Italy of the 350,000-year-old human footprints is a case in point. The scientists reported the footprints were made by someone …
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