Happiness at Ostlunds Ostlunds was the best resort ever, at least as far as our family was concerned. Al Ostlund, the owner of Ostlunds Resort was an older gregarious man with a huge smile and voice, they used to say “he was a good egg.” He had a classic flat top buzz of a haircut, large black square glasses with thick lenses that covered his smiling eyes and his handwriting was the most beautiful I’d ever seen, even though as many men of the time, he was missing a few fingers. His wifes soft hair was silver white and she had a very light complexion, perfect lipstick and always dressed in a fine manner. Suitably, her name was Pearl. Al would welcome us with such enthusiasm every time we arrived that we soon adopted his resort as our main stop. “Ho, ho, Kenny! Ahhh, it’s so good to see you and the family,” as he briskly patted my Dads back. “Welcome back!” he’d holler, because he was a little deaf too. Ostlunds Resort included a restaurant that served home style cooking, wonderful meals and pies, it had a very long bright golden yellow counter with red vinyl and chrome spinning stools. The tables lined windows that looked out over the channel filled with boat houses, docks and many boats. The back bar was a large shining stainless steel old fashioned ice cream counter with a multiple soda fountains, malt machines and many shiny lids that housed many flavors of ice cream, sauces, toppings and a grocery store, candy and gift shop with comic books. Of course as a resort they had cabins, boat rentals, and marina rentals, and my Parents favorite, a small bar that served only beer. They pretty much had it all and this was the place we choose to do nearly all our business and over the years we became very good friends with the Ostlunds and their family members. In no time at all my folks began spending great lengths of time at Ostlunds drinking beer, and meeting new people. It was there my parents quickly met and made friends with most of the locals. Also meeting many of Crane Lake’s frequent visitors like ourselves that also spent all their vacation time in the area. It was a fairly regular occurrence for my parents, their friends, and soon to be friends to drink Ostlunds beer cooler dry and this was a big beer cooler…….
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 15:37:39 +0000
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