Attribution: Grand Canyon National Park, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper remarking that celebrating the indigenous people and Columbus on the same day is such a fox-in-the-henhouse situation as to be beyond insulting. During his long journalistic meandering the keeper had many occasions of contact with …
Read
Category:Kickass
Kickass and Lost in Baraboo Bluffs
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis missing and presumed lost somewhere in the Baraboo Bluffs. While getting lost on the twisting roads through the beautiful thick forests now just beginning their leafy color show was more or less their intention, neither one of them anticipated …
Read
Kickass and Tech Inefficiency
Attribution: Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, sympathizes with the keeper in his tech inadequacies from which Phylis is constantly rescuing him. If the keeper were prone to it he would be in a constant state of embarrassment. But then he considers what a long trip it has been for …
Read
Kickass and EMT Morning Visit
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper up early as the big red fire engine and its accompanying ambulance came rolling out of the dregs of night as quietly as stalking predators—no sirens screaming over the deserted streets, and red lights flashing only for arrival. The dark forms …
Read
Kickass and Shot in the Arm
Attribution: Photo by Luigi Boccardo on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, turns the morning over to the keeper to review an incident of his boyhood when he and his family shared life with a variety of animals on a small dairy farm in northwest Wisconsin. That sharing went over the top the time the keeper …
Read
Kickass and Selling Books
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, with his limited interest in words–“Eat, nap, fetch, couch,” was not at the recent gathering of writers and readers at a west side retirement venue but got reports from the keeper and Phyllis who were there along with writers Geoff and Jerry. This meant writers, …
Read
Kickass and October 8, 2025
Attribution: Gregory H. Revera, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, congratulates himself for helping the keeper and Phyllis survive the three-day harvest moon with its overpowering evening shows and its apparent effect on Phyllis’s sleep. A skeptical keeper had only to do very basic research to learn of extensive …
Read
Kickass and Winter Prep
Attribution: Mennonite Church USA Archives, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons by Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis, acknowledging their cellular kinship with all living things—trees, creatures, insects, etc., note the preparations for the coming winter that are hard wired into the evolutionary survival programs of most life forms—except for humans. …
Read
Kickass and Birthdays
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis, fresh from the keeper’s great-grandson Tyler’s 11th birthday party in his parents Mazomanie garage, are impressed anew with the significance of the annual ritualistic celebration we use to mark the passage of our personal time. For one day each …
Read
Kickass and New Calendar
Attribution: The White House from Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, endorses the keeper and Phyllis’s explanation for the prevailing summer-in-October: it obviously is the result of “Only I can fix it, Trump” redoing the calendar to eliminate Christmas as being overstaffed, symbolized by a jolly fat …
Read
Kickass and Milking Cows
Attribution: StanCoFair, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper extends his and Phyllis’s unfailing efforts to be helpful to those ICE cowboys who are now rounding up the immigrant farm hands who milk the Wisconsin cows. Well, WHOA, all you masked rearrangers, doesn’t anybody among your deep …
Read
Kickass and Cop Horses
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis, impressed with what they at first thought might be ICE on horseback but turned out to be a couple of Madison cops riding their big gentle mounts around the westside neighborhood in a relaxed get-acquainted patrol. Curious residents, among …
Read