I recently found the transcript of a January 2003 interview with my father, John M. Lind, done as part of the Moiliili Community Center Oral History Project. He was on their list because his company, Honolulu Restaurant Supply, was located near the corner of Beretania and McCully for 24 years. It’s a rambling and somewhat unsatisfying interview but has some interesting bits of information.

At one point late in the interview (pg. 26), my dad was describing Kahala in the WWII era, when there were residences along the perimeter (Kealaolu Avenue and Kahala Avenue) and farms in the interior.

He observed:

They had chickens on that side, the pigs were on the other side. When the south winds would blow we would get the pig smell and when the trades blew we’d get the chicken smell. (laughing)

Earlier, he tells of turning a potential business disaster into a highly profitable enterprise (starting on page 7 of the transcript).

It seems his little company got an order from the Army for four high-capacity ice machines, each capable of turning out 1,500 pounds of ice per day. He doesn’t say what they cost, but it was a lot. He processed the order, sent it off to the factory, the machines were shipped to Honolulu, and he had them delivered to Fort Shafter. That’s where things got tricky.

The delivery was rejected by the officer in charge and he was told to take them back. The Army said they never made such an order.

It turned out that the salesman working for the company had run a scam. He apparently stole an Army requisition form, then filled it out and submitted it to my dad, collecting his nice commission along the way. By the time the ice machines arrived and the fraud was discovered, he was long gone.

But the factory considered these items a special order and wouldn’t take them back. So now my dad was stuck with the four big ice machines and a big bill to pay.

But anyhow the factory manager said, ‘John, tell you what let’s try and do. We’ll arrange some method where it can be paid for. But let’s hook up one machine and bring in a few merchandisers and go out and find people that could sell ice….So we hooked up one machine. (Laughing). And that started us in the ice business.

Eventually he had two 12×20 walk-in freezers, 10 feet high, with a large ice machine on top. Ice would drop into stainless bins in the freezers, where crews would come in at night a load 10 and 12-pound bags, around 1,500 a night, which were then delivered to service stations and convenience stores around the island.

We had monogrammed T-shirts, we had balloons and gave them to every service outlet using our refrigerated storage bins. We had over 100 accounts all over the island, all over the city. Waianae side. We went to Haleiwa, on that side. And Kaimui and everything at that end. But I remember one Christmas and New Year period, I found myself out delivering ice New Year’s night. People needed ice.

Eventually the demands of the ice business were overwhelming his small restaurant supply business, and when a company from the mainland turned up with an offer to buy the ice business, he sold the whole operation. Some of that equipment is still in use today by Hawaiian Ice Company.

At a party one night years ago, a friend introduced us to someone who had worked as an ice bagger and driver, and who, after a few beers, got his guitar and performed his own composition, the “I don’t make policy, I just deliver ice Blues. All I recall is that it was a hilarious performance!

In any case, I thought that was quite a remarkable story of creating an opportunity from a disaster, and therefore worth sharing.