Attribuion: Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, on behalf of all dogs, condemns the use of exploding fireworks as the main tool for celebrating the country’s July 4th birthday. The BANG! BOOM! -practice is, as Kickass sees it, one of those brainless ritual holiday accouterments that once in the hands of profiteers becomes …
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Category:Holidays
A Fourth of July Memorial
Attribution: Photo by Alex Martinez on Unsplash (Originally published July 4th, 2025) By Geoff Carter Every Fourth of July, we celebrate and honor an idea, a hope, and a dream which has survived two hundred and fify years. It seemed to be an impossible dream, that a nation could function as a free democracy, with lawmakers elected by …
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Kickass and the Country’s Birthdays
Attribution: Emanuel Leutze, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, in this time of celebrating the USA’s birthday, honors the keeper’s claim for the stage to reflect on the 200th birthday back in 1976 when he spent several weeks on a fascinating tour of meaningful historic sites for a series of …
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Kickass Guns for Mother’s Day
Attribution: Photo by Jay Rembert on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the news from the keeper that just in time for Mother’s Day, the Trump gang that couldn’t shoot straight is pushing through a change in USPS regs to make it easier to ship guns through the mail. With the comment period on …
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Kickass and Seventh Anniversary
Attribution: Photo by Natalie Kinnear on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reminds the keeper that he is a lucky man in that when he forgot it was his and Phyllis’s 7th wedding anniversary until it was too late to really celebrate it, so had Phyllis. Engrossed in a variety of personal projects, the anniversary day slipped …
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Kickass and Remembering at Easter
Attribution: Photo by Jerrick Castillo on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis and their Easter dinner guests in a post ham-dinner stupor lingering over dessert and coffee exchanging childhood memories. Some of those recited memories were old enough to have long beards and others from younger Easter eaters were as in-tune …
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Happy Easter from The Pen in Hand!!
Photos by Geoff Carter After a long night of egg delivery, it’s time to do some Chicago barhopping…. Well done, you wily wabbits!!
Kickass and Marsh Hawk Eggs
Attribution: Photo by Ben Lande on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in noting on this Easter morning that maybe one of the reasons he has lived so long is to give him time to make amends, or at least apologize for some of the thoughtless things he did as a farm boy …
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Kickass and Sexy Saturday
Attribution: Photo by Ajay Kumar Jana on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, in his careful study of this day between Good Friday and Easter, designates it as “Sexy Saturday.” The designation is obvious considering that both the Easter Bunny and colored eggs were historically chosen as Easter symbols for their representation …
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Kickass and the Big April Fool
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, agrees with the keeper and Phyllis that the fun went out of April Fool’s Day when you could no longer tell Mom there was an elephant out on the lawn or a mouse in the cereal box. And, of course, in this day and …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: The Best of the Irish Cinema
Artwork by Michael DiMilo The Pen in Hand’s Top Ten St. Patrick’s Day Movies By Geoff Carter It’s that time of year again, that special day of days set aside to celebrate the joy of being Irish. Green beer, corned beef sandwiches, the wearing of the green, The Chieftains spinning on your turntable, and a …
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Mighty Love
Artwork by Michael DiMilo Originally Published 2/14/2022 By Geoff Carter In her novel Surfacing, Margaret Atwood wrote “The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them, there ought to be as many for love.” She‘s probably right, although what passes for love today might not be as important to us as snow …
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