Attribution: Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper in his feeble efforts to “organize” the keep-safe treasures of his long life ran across his mother’s book of “One Hundred And One Famous Poems,” published in 1929 just a couple of years before the keeper was born. Mom’s small, …
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Category:Wisconsin
Kickass and the Sucking Goat
Attribution: Photo by Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that in his tireless search for meaningful parallels in life, the keeper is convinced he has found one in the memory of “Snowball,” the useless Billie goat of his farm- boy childhood and the current occupant of the White House. Snowball, a hornless, …
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Kickass Covers the Courts
Attribution: Brandonrush, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, indulges the keeper in yet another deep dive into his newspaper clipping past with parts of an entry from his covering the courts in Stevens Point in 1958-59. The day-long hearing and trial grew out of an incident at the Parakeet Tavern …
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Kickass and Ballpoint Pen Robbery
Attribution: Photo by Feodor Chistyakov on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper mourning the shrinking nature of the honest press and telling Phyllis that during his long journalistic tenure he tried his best to stick to the facts which seemed satisfactory to most but not all readers. When the bank in Bancroft—population less …
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Kickass and Sleeping Cop
Attribution: Photo by Jessica Smith on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper having grown up in and around a two-man police force town—Barron, recognizes the personal nature of the relationship between the “law” and the citizens. The records tend to be in the minds of the police and the policed, and the keeper …
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Kickass is NOT Prom King
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes the keeper is not asking for an election recount but the fact that he remembers the event after all this time means that it has taken up valuable memory space that could have been more judiciously used, perhaps to remember the dance steps …
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Kickass and the Snowy Owl
Attribution: Petr Kratochvil, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, assures the keeper that it is never too late to try to clean up the record so long as the final tally has not been inked in. So, here are the basic facts on a matter that has been haunting the …
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Kickass Talks to his Boots
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper with a message for his heavy old sheepskin-lined hunting boots as they come out of the back of the closet to do service on Phyllis’s feet. Listen up, boots, in your long deer hunting and ice fishing history you have never been …
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Kickass and Winter Memories
Attribution: Photo by Brooke S. on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that over the keeper and Phyllis’s lives of many winters there are memories of very special places of shelter from the cold and snow. One such place, very early in the keeper’s winters, was a home-made box-like cab on a horse-drawn bobsled with …
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Kickass and the Coldest Day
Attribution: Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper’s plans for this coldest day in years requires very little special equipment beyond a recliner and maybe the hand-knit lap robe from granddaughter Jessie and possibly coffee refills from Phyllis, but not too many so that bathroom trips interfere with the main …
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Kickass and Wind Chill Factor
Attribution: Photo by iuliu illes on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, shivers with the keeper and Phyllis and everyone else as the winter of 2026 uses the irritating “wind chill factor” to report flexing its cold muscle. Prior to the 1960’s when the “wind chill factor” became the mainstay of winter weather reporting, cold weather …
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Kickass and Shoes and Socks
Attribution: Photo by Fotógrafo Samuel Cruz on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper is ever anxious to follow the dictates of nature through the aging process—if running poses a balance issue, don’t run; when your vision fades, get glasses; when your waistline expands buy bigger pants, etc.. So, what to do with the natural …
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