Attribution: Photo by Connor Gan on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper spending an hour in a UW campus/hospital parking lot next to one of the incredibly busy intersections. The occasion was a Phyllis medical appointment and the keeper had brought along a book to occupy his waiting time. But he never picked …
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Category:Kickass
Kickass Remembering Jerry and George
Photo courtesy of Bill Stokes By Geoff Carter Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper stumbling across a faded newspaper clipping that detailed one of the tragedies that came to determine the course of his life. And as always the clipping found the keeper and Phyllis reviewing the early tragedy in her life, and how …
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Kickass and Old Press Credentials
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper will be offering his faded press credentials from the 1973 Democrat convention in New York for use in today’s protest gathering of the Silver Badgers and friends at Gammon Road and Tree Lane. The keeper offered the ancient credentials to Phyllis …
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Kickass and Birthday Model T
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. …
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Kickass and Getting Shots
Attribution: Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, noted that the keeper and Phyllis got their “shots” yesterday at the drug store where a friendly young man said he did about 50 every day and his future schedules were full. As he waited, the keeper experienced a daytime dream of sorts: …
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Kickass and the Press Pool
Photo courtesy of Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, hears the keeper out on his account of experiencing the Washington press corps’ wrath for using different strokes while swimming in the press pool aboard the Delta Queen as it floated down the Mississippi with President Jimmy Carter and Rosalyn aboard. Here’s the …
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Kickass and 73-Year-Old Notes
Attribution: Photo by Olya P on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper suffering through the unexpected discovery of notes he wrote 73 years ago as he was waiting for his Army discharge and enrollment at the UW “J” School. He will not be sharing the notes with Phyllis as they would demand excessive …
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Kickass and Gut Punch Memories
Attribution: Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, turns it over to the keeper on the cool, rainy morning of 9/20/26 with advice on dealing with the gut punches of memory that sometimes knock the wind out of innocent reminiscing. Nobody goes through life without unpleasant experiences of their own making and …
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Kickass and the Profane Monarch Butterfly
Attribution: Photo By/CreditMeg Hedeen/USFWS By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper claims to have overheard a Monarch butterfly use profanity as it was grabbed by UW scientists who burdened it with a navigation reporting device just as the Monarch was about to head south for the winter. The exact wording is …
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Kickass and Fixing the Toaster
Attribution: Photo by Oktomi Jaya on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, has known the keeper forever as a “fixer.” Raised in an era when if something stopped working you “fixed” it and life went on. Add to that the fact that the keeper grew up in a family of talented “fixers” undaunted by any broken …
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Kickass and Campfire Companions
Attribution: Photo by Honza Reznik on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, poses the keeper’s question of the day: Why DON’T people eat dogs and cats, as has been hinted at by our outrageous demented leaders. It began with the keeper wondering how the dogs and cats came to make such self-serving evolutionary deals as they cozied …
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Kickass and Being Average
Attribution: Mario Purisic mariopurisic, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, is with the keeper in sensing that dwelling on the downside of getting old is a boring subject and tends to be overdone by anyone over the age of 60. In the extreme upper levels of aging, dwelling on it …
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