Peg Ostrander
Arnie
friend of Margaret
Contact
born Mar 2, 1949 · 77 on Oct 5, 2026
12linked records
21mentions
2questions
2011–2026saved
What the account says about Arnie
33 records, oldest first2011
Jan 8
2015
May 3
Per Ray, the new boat.
Before the ramp:
1. Drain plug IN. Check it by hand. Check it again.
2. Transom straps OFF. Bow strap stays ON until the boat is floating.
3. Motor tilted UP. Trailer lights unplugged before the trailer goes in the water.
4. Key, life jackets, bow line in the boat.
Breaking in the motor, first ten hours:
- First hour…
May 3
We own a new boat, a Lund. R. picked it up at Pike Bay yesterday morning and ha…
…d it in the water for the opener by ten. He has been reading about this boat since Christmas. The old Alumacraft goes to Arnie's nephew.
Jim Hrdlicka was in the bow. They came in at four with five walleye and a discussion of the trim that continued through supper. David had meant to come and could not get away.
The…
2019
Feb 16
At the cabin, in February, for the first time in the fifteen years we have owne…
…d it. Bev and Arnie talked us into it at Christmas: the lake association has a potluck on the ice tonight, Earl plowed us out on Thursday, and R. has wanted to try for walleye through the ice ever since Arnie began bragging about it. He is out there with Arnie now, two dots and a sled.
We came up yesterday. The lake…
Jun 16
Birdie's first weekend up north. She fell off the dock on Saturday morning chas…
…ing a dragonfly, went under, came up, and discovered that she can swim, and has had to be carried out of the lake at intervals ever since.
R. has acquired a pontoon boat, secondhand, with a canopy. He says it is for the grandchildren and for my knees. Yesterday evening he took Bev and Arnie and me round the whole la…
Sep 28
The walleye are on the rock bar in twelve feet of water. I've been saving them…
…for you.
Sep 28
Up north. I drove. In fifteen years he has driven every mile of US-51 in both d…
…irections, and today he rode with the seat back and the dog's head on his shoulder and criticized nothing until Tomahawk.
I know to the minute how far we are from Arbor Bluff. Three hours and forty. The emergency room in Woodruff is fourteen. I looked both up before we left and was ashamed of myself, and then looked…
Sep 30
Home again. He fished yesterday morning with Arnie for two hours, sitting down,…
…and came in with three walleye and color in his face.
It is three weeks tomorrow. I have stopped listening to him breathe, most nights. I still look at the back step every time I pass the window.
Tomorrow at eight he starts the cardiac rehabilitation: three mornings a week until Christmas, on a treadmill, wired up,…
2020
May 10
Mother's Day. All three called. Kate held Theo up to the screen and he licked i…
…t.
We have been at the cabin a week and mean to stay until the leaves are down. Everything came up in two vehicles: the sourdough, the Bernina, R.'s pills for ninety days, the dog, forty pounds of flour.
Jim Hrdlicka did not come for the opener, the first one he has missed since we bought the place. R. fished it wi…
Sep 12
A year today since the stent. R. took the last of the blood thinner this week,…
…on schedule, and Dr. Valdivia will see him next month on a screen.
He walked the road to the landing and back at seven, as he has every morning since we came up, and then caught a walleye off the rock bar that he says was twenty-six inches and Arnie says was twenty-four.
Oct 18
Closed the cabin today after twenty-four weeks, the longest we have ever stayed…
…. I did the inside list alone and slowly.
Bev and Arnie on their dock and we on ours, forty yards apart, with a thermos each, most evenings from June on. Fish fry in boxes from the Thirsty Loon, eaten on the tailgate. Both loon chicks raised and gone.
I read "Hamnet" twice. A boy dies of plague in 1596 and his moth…
Oct 18
Closed today, after 24 weeks. The summer in numbers:
- Days here: 168.
- Loaves from Sigrid: 31.
- Walleye kept: 43 (Ray's count; mine is lower).
- Masks sewn here: 96, on top of the 214 at home.
- Quilts finished: one, and most of another.
- Books read: 37.
- Loon chicks: two hatched, two raised, both gone south by the first week of October.
- People inside the cabin o…
2023
Oct 7
For Marianne Trost: who to call up here if something is wrong at her place. Wri…
…tten out at her kitchen table from memory.
- Bev and Arnie Gustafson: 715-555-0107. Call Bev first for anything.
- Earl Koskinen: 715-555-0114. Evenings, after 6. He does not read texts.
- Our cabin: 715-555-0126. Our house in Madison: 608-555-0103.
- Darrell Maki, for a car: 715-555-0111.
- The clinic in Woodruff (…
Oct 22
Closed the cabin today. The cameras are up.
Arnie has put a steel gate across the end of their drive, with a keypad on a post, because of the break-ins. It closes itself. Bev gave me the code:
1949, then the pound key.
It is the year Arnie was born.
The gate opens by itself from the inside when a car comes up to it. On foot there is a gap beside the post.
2024
May 26
The cabin has real internet as of yesterday. A white dish the size of a pizza b…
…ox on the gable of the boathouse, and a little box in the main room with one light. R. put it up himself on the extension ladder, with me holding the foot of it and Arnie giving advice from a lawn chair. R. says it is for the cameras and the weather.
Theo and June appeared on the screen this morning from Portland, i…
Sep 8
Per Ray: fish worth writing down, Skein Lake.
- MUSKY, 44 inches. September 17, 2016. Rock bar, north shore, about 7 in the evening. Black bucktail. Arnie netted it. Released.
- WALLEYE, 26 inches (Arnie says 24). September 12, 2020. Rock bar, 12 feet, jig and minnow. Kept.
- NORTHERN, 26 inches (Jim says 28). Opener, May 7, 2016. Released.
- WALLEYE, 21 inches,…
2025
Jul 19
Arnie Gustafson had a stroke this morning.
Bev telephoned at twenty to seven. I knew from the first syllable; she did not say hello. He had come to the table for his coffee and could not lift the cup. His left hand lay on the cloth, she said, as if it belonged to someone else, and the left side of his face had come loose.
R. was across the yards before I had…
Jul 20
Arnie Gustafson had a stroke yesterday morning, July 19. For anyone who asks:
- He was last himself at 6:10, per Bev. She telephoned us at 6:40. The ambulance came from Woodruff in nineteen minutes; from there he went to Wausau by helicopter.
- Hannah was there before I was and did the right things in the right order.
- He had the clot medicine inside the time allowed.
- As of last night: he ca…
Jul 21
The lake had been drained, all of it, overnight. Boats lying on their sides on…
…gray mud, the island a hill. Arnie was walking out across the bottom with his cane, quite steadily, toward the rock bar, and R. was behind him carrying both rods.
When they got there the walleye were standing upright on the rocks on their tails, in a row, like people at a bus stop. Arnie pointed at them with the can…
Jul 23
Arnie has been moved from the hospital to the rehabilitation wing, still in Wau…
…sau. He will be there three weeks at the least. He can stand with a frame and two people. The speech is all there. He told R. on Monday that the food is institutional and that the fish in it has never seen a lake.
R. does not talk about it. He is quieter than after Don, if that is possible. Arnie is four years older…
Jul 27
Hannah told me on the dock tonight that she is not going to art school.
I had not known that she was thinking of it, exactly, but Ellen had, and has been careful to say nothing. The people at the gallery have told her she is good, and she is.
She said, "I liked last Saturday better than I've ever liked painting anything." Then she was horrified at herself and said she did not mean she li…
Aug 17
The dock has a handrail as of today, for Arnie. He came home Friday, walking wi…
…th a cane, the left hand slow.
Per Ray:
- On OUR dock, since Arnie's has steps down to it and ours has the ramp. He will fish from here.
- Along the right side of the first three sections, 24 feet, from the shore to where the pontoon ties up.
- Aluminum pipe, 1 1/2 inch, on five posts clamped to the frame. Nothing d…
Aug 20
Forty-eight years. Ephraim, room 6. The inn has changed hands, and the new peop…
…le have put a television in the room; we turned it to the wall.
The year after next is the one people make a fuss about. R. says he does not want a fuss. He has been looking at flights to Bergen.
Arnie came home on Friday, walking with a cane, the left hand slow. He cannot run the boat. He told R. so himself, at th…
Sep 7
R. and Arnie fish from the pontoon now. Arnie can get aboard from the dock with…
…the cane and R.'s arm, and sit in one of the upholstered chairs like a visiting bishop. R. ties on for him. Arnie complains about the knots.
They were out three hours this morning and came in with two walleye and a perch. R. cleaned them. Arnie sat on the overturned bucket and supervised, and when I brought down cof…
Oct 4
I'll move when the lake does.
Oct 5
Closed the cabin two weeks early, with the leaves barely turned, because we fly…
…to Lisbon on Thursday. It felt wrong to drain the lines in a warm wind. The young loon was still on the bay this morning, alone, in gray.
Bev and Arnie will be one of three lights on the road this winter, and for the first time I asked whether they would be all right. Bev said their daughter has been at them to move…
2026
May 3
Opened May 2, by Ray's opening list, in order. Found:
- One window screen chewed (back bedroom). No mice in the stations.
- The generator's clock reads 58 hours.
- Bunkhouse dry. Keypad batteries back in; the heater works.
- Starlink started again from Ray's telephone on the drive up.
Opener: Ray, Jim Hrdlicka and Arnie, from the pontoon. Four walleye.
Kivela comes on…
May 3
Opened the cabin yesterday, our twenty-third season. We came up in the RAV4 on…
…Friday; the truck is at Gary's. Earl had the water on. One window screen chewed, no mice in the traps, and the generator has run itself every Tuesday all winter.
The loons are back, both of them. I heard them last night from the bed, with the window open an inch, and R. heard them too.
Jim Hrdlicka came for the ope…
Jun 28
The association met yesterday: forty-one members present, the dues unchanged, a…
…nd the treasurer's report accepted without a question for the seventh year, which the treasurer regards as either a compliment or a sign that nobody listens.
Two loon chicks, hatched last week. Jack Niemi has put the floating signs out.
Arnie walked over this morning by himself, with the cane, across both yards, to…
Jun 30
Rhubarb jam, yesterday: four batches, 26 half-pints, all sealed. The rhubarb ca…
…me on Sunday morning with Arnie, on foot, with his cane, by himself.
Six jars go back to them. Two to Marianne Trost. Two to Earl.
Jul 9
FAMILY WEEK 2026, July 1 to 8. Fourteen people, eight days.
WHO SLEPT WHERE
- Lake bedroom: Ray and I.
- North bedroom: Kate and Samir, with June (5 on the 12th) on the trundle.
- Back bedroom, the twins: Ellen and Mark.
- Sofa bed: David and Julia.
- Bunkhouse: Hannah (17) lower lake side, under the blue quilt; Owen (15) upper lake side, under the green; Lucas (12) and Maeve…
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Facts
| First name | Arnold |
|---|---|
| Last name | Gustafson |
| Nickname | Arnie |
| Date of birth | 1949-03-02 |
| Gender | Male |
| Comments | Bev's husband. Stroke in July 2025. |
Phones
- number: '7155550122' variant: Mobile
People
Peg OstranderArnie is friend of Peg Ostrander
Appears with
People linked to the same records.
Ray · 8 records Bev · 3 records Hannah Sievert · 2 records Jim Hrdlicka · 2 records Nancy Haugen · 1 record Kurt Haugen · 1 record Stacy Haugen · 1 record Kristin Bakkum · 1 record Peter Haugen · 1 record Amy Wirtz · 1 record Matt · 1 record Barb Kuehl · 1 recordQuestions
2
Questions whose supporting records include Arnie or a record linked to them.
q035 What did Hannah do the summer she lived with us? q036 Make me a list of every book I have written about in my journal.