(UPDATE:... last paragraph of diary)
With all due respect to the strum and dang that's exploded over the thrilla from wasilla, ol' sarah was more than justified!
Stay with me now...
I apologize for this being a short diary on such a busy day in politics, et al, but sarah's seeming gaff needs defending.
See, history records little of this sad, and tragic story. It seems William Shakespeare had this spinster aunt, on his father's side, named Wilma Shakespeare. Today, we would call her a bag lady, a hoarder.
Wilma was for many years a street person, pushing a wood cart around, a cart which was stacked high with her valuable collectables which she never sold but just added to. She lived on 'donations' from passersby. Her family would have nothing to do with 'crazy Wilma,' bringing shame and degradation to sully the family name.
Meanwhile, in 1597, Shakespeare had taken up residence at a home he called 'New Place,' and he lived there until his death in 1616. When, in 1599, he was told about aunt Wilma who, by the way, he remembered from his childhood as his favorite aunt although even then he knew she was 'different,' and how she lived, he made arrangements for Wilma to come and live on his estate, in a small house behind the main building.
Wilma apparently didn't really remember him, but she was grateful, to a degree, for the place to stay, as long as she could bring her stuff with her. Naturally, Shakespeare agreed. As the years passed, Wilma's house became stacked with new valuable collectables, turning every room in the small house into a maze of tunnels into which nobody dared venture, even Shakespeare. He simply made certain she had food and was not staying out all night.
Here is where the tale turns. It seems that aunt Wilma turned out to also be somewhat of a religious zealot and part of her collecting was bibles. At first eveyone, including Shakespeare, thought it was a wonderful idea, and let her go about bringing in stacks of bibles to keep in her home. Collecting them made her very happy, and thus, so was Shakespeare. Where she got them, no one bothered to enquire.
Sadly, in 1611, on a very warm summer day when everyone was away on holiday, even the servants, aunt Wilma, while adding to another stack of bibles, accidently knocked over one stack which fell against another stack which fell against another which... like dominoes. Unfortunately, aunt Wilma was under all of those fallen books.
Two days later, when everyone returned, aunt Wilma was found to have given up the ghost under the avalanche. Shakespeare was heartbroken, and shouldered all of the blame for this happening to his favorite aunt. Her funeral was the talk of the neighborhood, as was the wake dinner late that day. It was there that Shakespeare gave away the bibles to any and all who wanted one. Everything else was sold at a yard sale which lasted for a week.
Another turn of the tale: after Shakespeare died in 1616, 'New Place' passed through various relatives until it was eventually sold to a Reverend Francis Gastrell who had no sense of history and had the entire lot torn down, main house, aunt Wilma's shack, and everything.
----what I forgot to mention in all the rush this morning was the fact that aunt Wilma reportedly had very few teeth, which resulted in a serious lisping slur when she spoke. There are no known examples of her speech pattern other than how Shakespeare himself created such interesting words in his writings. And some of his characters certainly ring of what aunt Wilma must have looked like back then.
And so it went.