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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Category:Wisconsin
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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Kickass and Dead Zoo
Attribution: René Cortin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper’s recall of the starvation zoo story that never became a news story because the culprit was an acquaintance of the publisher of The Wisconsin State Journal where the keeper was employed. The zoo owner’s plan had been …
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Kickass Milks the Cows
Attribution: Harris & Ewing, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Common By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper offering to teach the ICE agents how to milk cows, a skill that heretofore had been performed by those who were more recent immigrants than all the rest of us and who needed to lay …
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Kickass Goes South
Attribution: Florida Memory, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that for many years the keeper would be using these post-holiday days to return his Christmas gifts for cash he could use to buy enough gas to get the hell out of Wisconsin and far enough south to go …
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Kickass and Polar Plunge
Attribution: eagle102.net, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper is anxious to firm up his and Phyllis’s excuse for not attending the big Mazomanie Winter Solstice bonfire and the subsequent plunge into Black Earth Creek. The fact is they were both busy with their recliner clinical trials …
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Kickass and Inoculation Mishap
By Bill Stokes Attribution: James Gillray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper in acknowledging the news that a Fox Lake herd of dairy cows has been infected with the bird flu; and this of course prompts the keeper to tell Phyllis—probably not for the first time, about his inoculation …
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Kickass and Deer-Yard Night
Attribution: Photo by Nathan Karsgaard on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes the inevitability of the keeper using the first bitter cold winter day to regale Phyllis with the account of his spending the night in a Bad River deer yard when the temperature dropped to 30 below and he could not buckle his snowshoes …
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