Photo courtesy of Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper’s delight with a belated birthday present from Phyllis’s son Kevin in the form of a 3-hour tour on central Wisconsin’s beautiful back roads in a Model-T Ford that was five years older than the keeper, making it close to 100. …
Read
Category:Holidays
Kickass and the Keeper’s Birthday
Photo courtesy of Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, accepts the fact that 95 years ago the keeper weighed 8 ½ pounds and had a very limited vocabulary. Seventy years later on 9/11 2001 he had gained a lot of weight and his vocabulary had grown to the point that he could …
Read
Happy Labor Day from the Pen in Hand Blog
Attribution: Richard Hurd from Green Bay, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Support Our Unions!! King Harvest Has Surely Come by The Band “I work for the Union/’Cause She’s So Good to Me/ –Robbie Robertson
Kickass Marks Labor Day
Attribution: Roadside Wildflowers, Droveway Lane by Des Blenkinsopp, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, aware that the keeper and Phyllis descend from the laboring class, will honor them today with extra napping on this Labor Day Monday. He suggests the same for everyone. Since 1894, Labor Day has marked a …
Read
Kickass and Fireworks
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 …
Read
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 …
Read
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 …
Read
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 …
Read
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 …
Read
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 …
Read
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 …
Read