Gossip of the Day

The road to my parents house is 1.7 miles from Hwy 33. I know because I have on several occasions walked end to end. We live pretty much right of nowhere and left of everywhere else.

The first curve in the road leads to your best view of Lake Charlotte; except now there are a few new houses blocking the visual grandeur. The Big Lake is what it is sometimes referred to by Lake Charlotters and the Bay is the other part (where my parents live).

When you first turn on our road, and on the other side of the road from Lake Charlotte there is Lake Martha. Poor Martha has had a Millweed problem for a long while now because the DNR don't pay much mind to her. Lake Charlotte is where it's at.

Now on several occasions I have walked down our road, or rode my bike the 1.7 miles and those times have been when I've stayed after for school (the bus only dropped us as far as the road), when I've visited my friend Cheryl, and when my cousins and I went trick-or-treating. I never minded the walk when we went trick-or-treating because we were always rewarded every few feet.

Now there is a steep hill on the other side of the triangle where my parents house is located. Following that hill there is another even steeper hill that is nearly impossible to drive on in a really bad snow storm. The houses at the bottom of the hill were never really generous with candy and it wasn't until the top of the hill where there was anything very promising.

I remember Mr. and Mrs. Lockheader because of the excellent choices of candy they would hand out, usually my favorite of 3Musketeers. Most often they gave a choice of three. They had a blue glass bowl that sat in the entry way of their really nice house (You could see the sun setting over the lake from the far window).

It seemed like it was usually Mr. Lockheader that handed out the candy, but sometimes it was Mrs. Lockheader. I don't think they ever had children, so I imagine this was a treat for them to see us kids getting candy.

That's how I remember them, the Lockheaders, good candy people. That's the way I should remember them, but the last time I came home and I saw Lake Charlotte peaking through the new houses on the corner in the road I thought of how much has changed around the lake. When I got to the hill of the Lockheaders' home it was for sale. I was surprised they decided to move.

"Mom, did you know that the Lockheader's house is for sale?" I said.

"Yeah, they can't sell either, not since the murder."

Shocked! Anyone would be when something like this is brought into the home of their childhood sanctuary. The only death I remember on Lake Charlotte was a man who drowned one summer on the Big lake from too much alcohol.

"It was all over the news" my Dad said.

"I don't get your news though." I said.

My Mom was so matter-of-fact when she said "I guess the Lockheaders were swingers. They got a divorce I guess, but Mr Lockheader and one of the other couples still hung around together, but the wife decided she liked Mr Lockheader better and wanted a divorce."

My Dad continued "The husband shot his wife, drove out here and shot Dick. Then he went back and shot himself. He lives all the way in Burnsville, or something like that."

My Dad took a drag on his cigarette when he finished and said "I'm going out to feed the birds."

"Did you hear the shot?" You could hear things quite clear on the lake at night. It was like the water echoing back the day to you, telling you secrets you missed during the noise of the day. My parents must have heard this one.

"Didn't know about it until we saw it on the news. We were at the nursing home with Grandma when it happened." She said, "Do you want something to eat?"

*This is based on a true account of something that happened recently on Lake Charlotte, but I have fictionalized enough to make it gossip.