Attribution: Photo by Andreas Haubold on Unsplash Kickass, the doorstop dog, warns the keeper that it is possible to overdo in saving mementos as they are wont to span time on very rickety bridges and leave you stranded on an impossible fantasy island. So it was with the keeper’s 1944-1945 Wisconsin resident hunting and trapping licenses that somehow …
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Category:Memories
Kickass Remembers Grocery Shopping
Attribution: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper remembers a grocery shopping trip with his mother as follows: Park in the Barron, WI. back alley and lug the crate of fresh eggs in through the back door where grocer Harry Meyers checked them over …
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Kickass and Model T Coils
Attribution: dave_7 from Lethbridge, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes with the keeper and Phyllis that occasionally there will be a Facebook post that sends one or the other of them hurtling back through the decades. Such was the case for the keeper when the Model T …
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Kickass and Bill Veeck
Attribution: US Marine Corps, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reminds the keeper that the baseball season is off and running and it is time for his annual lament about the editor who, to the keeper’s consternation, cut Bill Veeck’s wooden leg out of one of the keeper’s Tribune …
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Kickass Remembers Jackrabbits
Attribution: Photo by Mike Lewinski on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in lamenting the disappearance of jackrabbits in Wisconsin. Nobody has seen one for years and DNR biologists say they are officially “extirpated.” In his boyhood Barron County days, the big white jackrabbits were like the royalty of winter, jumping up from …
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Kickass and the Deer
Attribution: Photo by Prazanthy Ramesh on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assist the keeper in celebrating the keeper’s uncanny foresight in buying a pair of snowshoes on the hottest day of this erratic season. It happened when Phyllis left the keeper unattended at St. Vinny’s and he spotted these beautiful Iverson snowshoes, brand new and …
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Kickass and Dad’s Wagon Rides
Attribution: Photo by Luismi Sánchez on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, turns it over to the keeper on this very windy day to remember a story his dear old dad told of his own boyhood in North Dakota when he hooked his coaster wagon to big tumbleweeds and let the wind pull him across the …
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Kickass and Future/Past
Attribution: NASA/Carla Thomas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper has resolved to stop dwelling on his past and concentrate more on his future which is guaranteed to be a much less cluttered field of commentary material. In keeping with this resolve, the keeper will now …
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Kickass and 2025 as a Model A
Attribution: Lars-Göran Lindgren Sweden, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, having sampled an entire day of 2025, has consulted with Phyllis and decided to go through the year identifying himself as a car, which in his case would be a Model A Ford made the …
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Jimmy Carter: A Man for All Seasons
Attribution: Tuntematon, Valkoisen talon valokuvaajat (01/20/1977 – 01/20/1981), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter President of the United States, master diplomat, naval officer, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Jimmy Carter was also a man who lived in the same Plains, Georgia ranch home he had bought as a young man, who …
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Kickass Goodbye to Jimmy
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper joining the world to bid adieu to Jimmy and to recall one more time the wonderful experience of floating down the Mississippi on the Delta Queen for three days with Jimmy and Roselyn during Jimmy’s POTUS time. The opportunity to swap …
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Kickass and Christmas Memories
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, pauses on this Christmas Day to paw through a few memories with the keeper. The keeper goes first: A cold backseat ride in a rattling old Model A Ford through a brittle, star-lite night from Grandma and Grandma Helgeland’s farmhouse, after lutefisk and lefse …
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