Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I was a public-school teacher for over thirty years. I mainly taught high school English, but because I was at one point assigned to the Home and Hospital Program, which serviced students at home who were too sick to go to school, I had occasion to teach all …
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Kickass Puts on Shoes and Socks
Attribution: Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, encourages the keeper in his efforts to extract something useful from the verity that putting on your shoes and socks becomes a vastly different undertaking over the course of a lifetime. From a hurried minute when your youthful mind is on other things—you know …
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Kickass and Demonstrators
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper tries to lend a hand here and there as Phyllis and others mount a “Protection Rally” to proclaim the injustice of depriving seniors of necessary benefits and services as prescribed by a haunted and a contaminated White House. In an …
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Kickass and Memorial Day 2025
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes that the keeper is still around on this Memorial Day to get his usual note off to the two I & R platoon mates who are NOT around and haven’t been since the artillery shell took them out the day after their squad …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Sinners”
Illustration by Michael DiMilo Immortal Sins: Movie Review of Sinners ★★★★☆ By Geoff Carter Movies can be larger than life which is—of course—a great part of their appeal. It always has been. Spectacles like D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, the 1963 Twentieth Century-Fox version of Cleopatra, or the more recent Babylon, movies featuring “a cast of thousands”, lavish sets, and …
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Kickass and the Green Curtain
Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis peeking under the lush green curtain that recently fell to hide the greatest show on earth. They see big gawky birds laying eggs in ragged treetop rookeries, thousands of exquisite warblers warbling to each other, fresh dirt from countless …
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Full Measure
Artwork by Michael DiMilo (Originally posted on May 31, 2019 in Honor of our Veterans. Addendum posted on May 25, 2025.) By Geoff Carter Ah, Memorial Day: the harbinger of summer, the first family picnic, and the grill master’s opening day. Memorial Day also happens to be the holiday recognizing and honoring those who have …
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Kickass and a Day Off
Attribution: It is unclear as to whether the press-materials were distributed by a personal publicity agency representing the subject, or if they were distributed by an agency employed to publicize the film, and/or the first CBS television broadcast of the film, which aired on November 3, 1956., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Going Above and Beyond
The Ten Best War Movies Capt. Saska Ball, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (Originally published in June, 2019) By Geoff Carter “…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have …
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Kickass and Old Licenses
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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Kickass and Too Much Lunch
Attribution: Photo by Shah Krish on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis fresh from a lush lunch with son Rick and his wife Becky and grandkids Jessy and Paul. As usual, take-home containers were the order of the day for the keeper and Phyllis as they finished their lunch later at …
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Constitutional Anarchy
Attribution: National Archives at College Park – Still Pictures , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition …
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