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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Category:Holidays
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!!
The Pen in Hand Blog Photo by J. Amill Santiago on Unsplash
Kickass and January Rain
Photo by Phyllis Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper sipping from his first cup of coffee on a rainy January morning, sniffing with the dregs of a stubborn cold, but generally feeling smug about his good fortune in having accidentally migrated far enough south from his northern Wisconsin birthplace to …
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Kickass and MLK Bob Shephard
John Brighenti from Rockville, MD, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper on this MLK weekend in the traditional salute to the memory of the keeper’s old Army friend Bob Shephard, from the wintery command integration on a Korean hill side to the life-long sharing …
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Kickass and Young Storytellers
Attribution: קלאופטרה, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that while the keeper was a professional storyteller for decades, he found himself at a disadvantage recently in a storytelling session with Tyler and Trevor, a couple of very young great grandsons. It was one of those rare and wonderful occasions …
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Happy New Year from The Pen in Hand Blog!!
Pavel Ševela, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Pen in Hand’s Guide to the Movies: Ringing in the New Year
Maasaak, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (Originally posted in December, 2020) By Geoff Carter We thought we had it made after getting out of 2020, but this has been another hard year—remembering everything that happened is painful—but we have to; if we do not remember, we’ll be doomed to repeat the same mistakes yet again. …
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Kickass and Youthful Sound
See page for author, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports on a belated clan Christmas gathering focused around Mike’s chili and Phyllis fruitcake during which the Clan dog Boo made an authoritative territorial statement and a bevy of young cousins shook Vista West out of its vintage-age slumber with …
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Kickass and New Year’s Resolves
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash Kickass, the doorstop dog, sympathizes with the keeper over his New Year’s resolution dilemma in that after a long life of multiple, long-standing character flaws that demanded annual resolution-making, the keeper has finally emerged as a perfect human being, whereby making any New Year’s resolutions would be extraneous and ridiculous. The best …
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2022: A Year of Extremes
Photo by Planet Volumes on Unsplash By Geoff Carter Last week, just before Christmas, we were bombarded with news of a possible “cyclone bomb”, a megablizzard that could bring record snowfall, dangerous windchill temperatures, and hazardous travel conditions. We were warned. Winter Storm Eliot was bearing down on us. And, for some parts of the country, it was …
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Kickass and the Day After Christmas
Lulu Hoeller from Pittsburgh, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, was again unable to stop the keeper from expressing his seasonal impressions: “Twas the day after Christmas and all through the place, not a creature was stirring–nobody showed face. “Phyllis in her robe and me in my rags …
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Kickass and Jim Hoyt’s Tuba
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis on this grand package-opening morning that features kids by the millions, to note that there was a recent adult package-opening that would have been fun to see: it was Jim Hoyt opening the package that contained his new tuba. …
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