Attribution: Photo by mali desha on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper fresh from “a good night’s sleep,”–a much valued thing as the years pile on with their inclement weather notices that impact Phyllis’s sleep more than the keepers. The keepers “good night’s sleep” history begins with a bad night’s sleep when his …
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Category:Wisconsin
Kickass and First Day of Spring
Attribution: Thomas Wolf (Der Wolf im Wald), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in greeting this first day of SPRING—2026 and wondering if it is necessary to go beyond that simple observation for this Friday March 20 to just be one helluva great day! …
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Kickass and Remembering Up a Storm
Attribution: Photo by kim giseok on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis and everyone else in a post snowstorm St. Patrick’s Day full of bright sunshine and white snow covering everything green except the shadow of billionaires’ money. As is his fallback—not fall down—position the keeper goes back over the years …
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Kickass Waiting for the Snow
Photo by Russ Williams By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, once demonstrated his difficulty in waiting for something to happen, and perhaps his cloddish nature, by walking out of a live performance of “Waiting For Godot” the classic Beckett play in which two guys lounge about under a tree and talk about expecting Godot …
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Kickass and the Price of Gas
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, cautions the keeper about going so deep into his past that he mentions the price of gas at 5 gals for $1. Memory exercise of this kind tend to brand the keeper as either careless with the facts or performing for attention. His defense …
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Kickass and the Richest People
Attribution: Photo by Mathieu Stern on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that the keeper, like all peasants is fascinated by the regular reports listing the richest people in the state, Wisconsin, the current tally showing Diane Hendricks of ABC Building, Judy Faulkner of EPIC and John Menard as top “richest.” It warms the keeper’s …
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Kickass and Mom’s Poetry Book
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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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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