Attribution: Don O’Brien from Piketon, Ohio, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, accompanies the keeper as he walks the mile and a half to the country school. Up Swans hill and past the fields where big-eared jackrabbits sometimes leaped from hiding and loped off like dancers. Feeling …
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Category:Memories
Kickass and Threshing Memories
Attribution: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, will be napping through the keeper’s obligatory annual threshing time reminiscence. Show the keeper a former farm kid whose memory goes back that far and he will show you someone who romanticizes the time when neighbors assembled around …
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Kickass and Windshield Relevance
Attribution: GREGHERRON, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, supports the keeper’s contention that injecting relevance into memories is something he should spend more time at, considering his inclination to loiter in memory lane. So, there is the memory of the keeper’s first off-farm job at Cliff Horstman’s service station …
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Kickass and Amish Cultivator
Attribution: Photo by Brad Weaver on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, naps in the first bright morning sunshine of July 2024 as the keeper tries to send a message to the Amish youth up in central Wisconsin who was riding that one-row corn cultivator behind a team of horses as the keeper and Phyllis passed …
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Kickass and Two Day Shopping
Attribution: © European Union, 2024, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, sympathizes with the keeper as he continues to fall even farther behind in trying to adjust to the ever-changing, all-American preoccupation with shopping. The keeper’s resistance to shopping obviously has its origin in his very first solo experience …
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Anticipation
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter There was a time not so long ago when the only mail was snail mail, telephones were attached to the wall, and mail order deliveries took weeks instead of days—or hours. Computers took up entire rooms instead of fitting in your backpack or sitting in your pocket. If …
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Kickass and Pony Silver
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper uses “Derby Day” as a reminder that for an amazingly long period in his developing life he was at the mercy of an arrogant, narcissistic member of the horse family, specifically a pony named Silver who may have been named …
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The Winding Road
Attribution: http://www.ForestWander.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 US, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter I happened to be running an errand in my old hometown, the village I grew up in the other day, and I barely recognized the place. My middle school was gone; they’d razed it. Most of the businesses, including Falls Music, Sergeant Pepper’s Record …
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Kickass and Grandpa Helgeland
Attribution: Keppler, Udo J., 1872-1956, artist, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, and Phyllis know that the keeper is easily entertained so it should be no surprise for them to learn that he—the keeper began his daily memory patrol with an image of his gangly old Norwegian grandfather trotting …
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Kickass and Easter Symbols
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper deeply immersed in his personal Easter egg hunt as he looks for two over-easy with bacon, toast and fried potatoes, but finds Phyllis exercising her artistic talent on a couple of hard-boiled specimens. Easter is what you make of it—tied as …
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Kickass and Norwegian Women
Attribution: Jonathunder, GFDL 1.2, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, agrees with the keeper that if you are fortunate enough to have had Norwegian women in your life you are one lucky dog. The keeper speaks with the authority of having had a Norwegian mother and all the Norwegin ancestry that went …
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Kickass and Grocery Shopping
Attribution: State Library and Archives of Florida, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper makes no apology for yearning for the good old days when grocery shopping—as done by his dear old mother meant standing in front of a counter and reading from a grocery list …
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