Last week John finished this 500+ page biography of Shakespeare that came to a close too soon. Ackroyd is such a great writer and we really got a feel for the town and countryside of Stratford and London, and the acting and theatre industry, but we were disappointed to be reminded that so little is known of Shakespeare himself. The book does an incredibly commendable job of portraying him quite clearly despite the sparse material that is available, but we were hoping to the very end that some long lost diary or pack of letters would be revealed. No such luck. This book was our morning reading---a biography of H.L. Mencken, our night reading. We still have a long way to go in that book, now both morning and night.After spending a lot of time doing some deep cleaning at the house today, we headed north toward Newaygo and the nearby Hess Lake where we met Ivan and Judy, Myra's brother and sister-in-law, for a late afternoon supper at Smuggler's Cove. We learned that Mom Kraker (John's 96-year-old mother-in-law, Ivan's mother) had fallen twice this week. We brought dinner over and ate with her Wednesday night, and this all happened after that. So, it's probably going to be a matter of moving into assisted living for her. It's tough to get old!
