LAKE CHARGOGGAGOGGMANCHAUGGAGOGGCHAUBUNAGUNGAMAUGG

 For the past couple of years, I have been teaching an additional intervention class. In prepping for this class, I run across an article on a nearby Nipmuc Native American family of storytellers and singers who live in southern Massachusetts. In tying the article to my planned curriculum, I also find out that they live and practice their performances on Lake Webster.

You may have heard of Lake Webster. Sure you have. It’s the lake with the longest place name in the United States: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.

The lake, covering nearly 1,500 acres, hovers near the Connecticut border, so it’s over an hour’s drive from my house, but it has been on my bucket list to visit for a couple of years. This summer I decide it’s time to see it for myself.

I have two destinations in mind: the pizzeria with a lakeside patio and the bookstore. I bring along a co-pilot because, hey, eating pizza and drinking beer is no fun alone, and because she’s a tremendously good sport.

At the bookstore I find a 1936 edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, not my favorite book by far, but Hawthorne and I share a birthday, so I feel compelled to buy it. Only problem is, there isn’t a price on the book. The owner of the shop looks it up and tells me that it might cost anywhere from $6 to $900. Thanks for narrowing that down for me, dearie. $8 lighter and one old book heavier, I trot out of the store with my treasure.

We stop in at the gift store one shop over, but I don’t really need a sign that says, “Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg” (even though I kind of want it). I snap a picture and call it a win.

We attempt to find the park that is on the map and on the internet, but it doesn’t exist. That’s fine because we accidentally and a little bit on purpose end up right at the pizzeria. Other than two men drinking beer, we are the only people there and have the entire patio deck to ourselves. We eat pizza and sip cold beer and try the Electric Frozen Lemonade, spending time enjoying our small view of the enormous lake, which is surprisingly quiet on a beautiful day.

I’ll probably go back someday, maybe to explore the whole lake, but today is just about the touch-and-go; I came, I saw, I conquered, I left happier because of it. I may be able to say it, but I still can’t spell it, so maybe someday when I truly have mastered the lake, if that day ever comes, I can master the 45 letters of its name, as well: Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg