Kickass and old kids

Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper is constantly in the throes of adjusting to the fact that his “kids” are getting so damn old.  He laments as follows: Even the youngest—Mike, has a birthday today that some years ago, would have qualified him for Social Security.  Great balls of fire!  It cannot be.  I clearly remember the day he was born.  On the way home from the hospital, I stopped in the UW Arboretum to briefly cast a bass lure over a likely spot.  Mike’s older brother Rick was in my charge—at the age of three or so, and he stepped out onto what he assumed to be a solid green surface but turned out to be water plants floating over three feet of water.  Rick went completely under water and I had to jump in and pull him out by the nape of the neck.  Had anyone been watching—particularly if they had known the circumstances, it would not have been impossible to conclude that a father was drowning one of his kids to make room for yet one more. Mike made five.  The keeper adds that the event does not seem to have left permanent scars, even to the extent that Rick will go bass fishing with the old man, even sometimes with Mike along.

(See billstokesauthor.com for more Kickass and news of the novel MARGARET’S WAR.)