Robert Lindsey
AUTHOR
WAIMEA I KA LA'I
Waimea I Ka La’i is an autobiography. A collection of personal memories growing up in Waimea, a little cattle town, on the Island of Hawai’i, nestled in a crease at the foothills of Kohala Mountain. Waimea I Ka La’i is a cornucopia of personal lessons learned and a life lived which I am bequeathing to our four precious grandsons through Story. Lessons of Love for my parents. Who sacrificed, and went without for me and my ‘little brother’ so we could have a ‘life’ better than they had. Love the people who made a difference in my life.
A host of teachers, preachers, employers, and outliers. Even two folks, a Sunday school teacher and a high school counselor said I didn’t have the ‘brains’ necessary to succeed in school. In their perverse way, they too helped and inspired me. Love for Place. For Waimea, the town I grew up in. A beautiful slice of Heaven on Earth. I share my recollections of family and friends I had a connection with. Waimea I Ka La’i is my Story. What is your Story? It will differ from mine in substance. But in our humanity, they will intersect.
Bob’s Reflections of a Wanna Be Paniolo
Reflections of a Wanna B Cowboy is the author’s fifth book. Reflections is essentially Lindsey’s autobiography written in “talk story” format. Talking story is a way of communicating among locals in the islands. Lindsey and his grandson Samuel Kamaile are its main characters. Its basic message is, we are global citizens.
Author’s Statement
Reflections of a Wanna B Cowboy is my personal life story. Reflection is a story about an unfulfilled dream. I wanted so much as a kid to be a cowboy on the Parker Ranch when I became a man—a dream I dreamed of countless times. But as oft happens to so many of us, this life force called destiny intervened and altered my plan. With my oldest grandson Samuel’s help as a facilitator, in this autobiography of sixty snippets, I tell my story for our grandsons to remember their Tutu (grandma) and me by. Reflections have a larger message: we are citizens of the world.
Letters from Hawaii
Letters from Hawaii is R. K. Lindsey's eighth book and a takeoff from Mark Twain's 1866 collection of twenty-five letters written from Hawaii for the Sacramento Union. Letters is an autobiographical sketch of Lindsey's work life. As a probation officer with the Hawaii Judiciary, park ranger with the National Park Service, self-employed farmer, a state legislator in Hawaii's State House, coffee plantation manager, a clerk typist, resource center coordinator, government relations officer, agency liaison and assets director with Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate, and trustee with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. He employs wit, humor, history, and wistful words of wisdom throughout hoping to touch the heart. Lindsey's fifty-eight letters and nine postcards are a conversation with pen pal Mossimo Antolini, in London, England. Antolini is a fictional character, but the substance of the letters is true.
God Is Aloha
God Is Aloha therefore God Is Love... God Is Aloha is a love story about two couples; Job and Dimples Mallory and Luke and Poliahu Henderson. Job and Dimples marriage after putting up with each other for twenty years ends in a nasty divorce. Luke and Poliahu's love for each although they are total opposites endures and grows stronger across time. Job and Dimples unlike Luke and Poliahu are never able to find that sacred space in their relationship called unconditional love, taking and accepting each other for who they are in the best and worst of times. They failed to heed the wisdom embedded in I Corinthians 13 verses 1-8 and 13, "1 If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not to love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. 13...the greatest of these is love" because God is Love, God Is Aloha.
With My Papa at Cowboy Pond
With My Papa at Cowboy Pond is an abbreviated autobiography.
“I probably will not live to see our grandsons graduate from high school. This story is for them. Cowboy Pond on Waikoloa stream is where my story is set. It is a real place from where I impart grandfatherly advice via Lalamaikai, share tidbits about me and their Tutu (grandma), and emphasize a core message—lives in the future, not the past. Lalamaikai and I are its central characters.”
Latitude 20.04°N Longitude 155.71°W: The Dilemma of Being Hawaiian American
Latitude 20.04N, Longitude 155.71W is a Hawaiian story told through snapshots and snippets of the lives of fabled and fictionalized family members named Lindsey, Beckley, and others. Through them, I recall bits and pieces of Hawaiis rich and glorious past, everyday folks living ordinary lives doing extraordinary things. I hope you, as the reader, will be able to relate to and find the tie that binds us as God's children one planet, one people, one purpose.
A wide swath of time is covered in this book of short chapters from the creation of the Hawaiian Islands (eighty million years ago), to the landing of our people at Waiahukini (AD 300), to the arrival of James Cook (1778) and the first New England Missionary Company (1820), to the establishment of sugar and pineapple plantations and cattle empires (1800s), and to the political trade winds that blew across the archipelago; and from chiefdoms to unified kingdom (1819), to provisional government (1893), to republic (1895), to territory (1900), and to statehood (1959). Holly Birch and Mister John are focal characters. Latitude 20.04N, Longitude 155.71W is history written in shorthand in a fun, interesting, and dynamic way. I started this journey with that intent. I hope I have achieved my intention. You be the judge. Always with aloha . . . Bob Lindsey.
The 5Th of July
Robert K. Lindsey is a keiki o ka ina, a child of the land, born in Hilo on the biggest Hawaiian island, and raised in Waimea at the foothills of the Kohala mountains. Waimea was a quiet and quaint paniolo (cattle) town when he was growing up there, and Parker Ranch was the foundation of the community. And though the place has changed across time, its beauty still abounds. Lindsey says he suffers from island fever, and Im glad I do. Mark Twain described Hawaii as the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean. Twain is one reason Ive never ventured far from home. He convinced me early on that all I need is right here. Im stuck to this rock called Hawaii forever.
In his work life, Lindsey has strived to serve the interests of his lhui (people) to the best of his abilities, first as a social worker with the Family Court of the Third Circuit, then as a park ranger with the National Park Service at Puukohol Heiau National Historic Site. He also served as the land assets directorHawaii Island with Kamehameha Schools (19942004)and is currently a trustee with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (20052013). He is also a Hawaiian Home Lands lessee (19862085).
Lindsey believes that as Hawaiian Americans living in a globalized world, for the sake of Mother Earth and our children, the pono (right) thing for us to do is to let bygones be bygones and to forgive but not forget the sins of yesteryears that were committed against us. We must live joyously in the moment and look with hope and optimism to the future . . . Its said the one constant in life is change. One of the lesser fictionalized characters in The 5th of July is Abigail Hathaway McMoore. Her takeaway lesson for us is this: for the sake of our children and the children of the world, we should not be bitter toward change but embrace it, be its advocate, not its victim; its champion, not tormentor; its friend, not adversary. As a contemporary Hawaiian, I subscribe to that philosophy.
The 5th of July is Lindseys second book. His first title, Latitude 20.04N Longitude 155.71W was published in 2013.
