While looking for the Hawaii Sheriff Association banquet ticket, I was reacquainted with an article I wrote back in 1991. It appeared in the monthly newsletter I was publishing at the time, Hawaii Monitor.

Long before the internet and social media, it was one way to reach a larger audience.

This story was my attempt to connect more of the dots and provide further political context to the political organization that became identified with Tom “Fat Boy” Okuda.

The original story, published as “analysis and commentary,” follows as it appeared at the time, complete with at least one typo.

Here’s a question. I don’t believe that I ever publicly acknowledged the three people who originally approached me with their concerns about being pressured to participate in preparing food for fundraisers. All three were women working either in a court office or at the legislature. At the time, they feared being identified as sources, and I protected their identities. But I also felt bad about being unable to acknowledge their contribution to the significant reforms that followed. All three have long since passed away, and I have considered whether I should posthumously recognize them as heroines in the affair. I haven’t made a decision yet, and would welcome your thoughts.

If you have trouble reading it, there’s a link to download the 2-page pdf.

Also see:

A history lesson: The Judiciary Scandal of the mid-1980s, iLind.net, July 15, 2015.

A small circle of friends by Ian Lind on Scribd

On Tuesday morning, after a leisurely start, we walked back over to Queen Street and revisited the small jewelry store in the Queen’s Arcade, Gallery Pacific.

Nick remembered us from the day before and pulled out the items Meda had been looking at.

She chose a colorful pendant made of shell and set in sterling silver, with colors that shift with the quality of the light it reflects. She’s a happy camper.

But it’s not the only item of jewelry she’ll be going home with, as our run through several thrift stores, known here as op shops, also produced results. Along the way she found a small jade pendant, a colorful shell pendant, and a silver stick pin with a tiny colorful Kiwi. These were all picked up at thrift store prices!

You can click on any photo for a closer look.

And there’s one more pendant I couldn’t get a photo of because it’s all wrapped up for travel. It’s a simple black slate pendant on a black string, purchased at the Auckland Art Gallery. What makes it unusual is that it is made from a slate tile removed during the museum’s reroofing, so turning scrap into art! What fun!

The rest of the day was again spent on a continuing wander through the streets of Auckland, ending back at our hotel for a nap and several glasses of wine in the hotel lobby lounge during happy hour, another perk that goes with our Marriott elite status. I’ll explain that in a later post. And we want to give a shout out to Mon, our favorite server during the afternoons we’ve spent in the lounge. She’s been helpful, attentive, and quite charming. Thank you, Mon.

We fly back to Honolulu on Air New Zealand Flight 10 late this evening, Wednesday, and arrive in Honolulu early Wednesday morning thanks to the International Dateline.

Although we’ve had a very good time vacationing here in Auckland, we’ll be very happy to see the cats again and enjoy some feline-disrupted sleep.

First, I should explain our approach to trips like this.

We have friends who, when offered such an opportunity, fill all available stretches of time to the brim with activities, so many sights to see, places to visit, miles to drive. We get exhausted just listening to their travel itineraries.

So I wasn’t surprised when I asked a couple of chat bots for suggested itineraries for our visit to Auckland.

For example, ChatGPT suggested how we might spend today:

Morning: Auckland Art Gallery

Afternoon: Wynyard Quarter: wander, tram, dine

Evening: Catch a show at ASB Theatre

The problem is that any one of those activities would pretty much fill our day!

We do enjoy the Auckland Art Gallery, the city’s main art museum. We have visited it at least once on every one of our trips to Auckland over the years, and have always come away enriched.

But racing through the art in order to get to another shopping/sightseeing errand after lunch is not our style.

We’re here on vacation. We want to get a flavor of the place, but feel no compulsion to knock ourselves out in the process. We want to finish our trip feeling relaxed and rested, not exhausted by the effort to see and do as much as possible during the time allotted.

Enough on that.

We spent Thursday, our fourth day since arriving, and third full day in Auckland, visiting with a “cousin” and his wife.

Brad Heald and I were introduced via Ancestry.com, where we showed up as DNA matches on my Lind-family line, my dad’s family. Brad reached out seeking information about his great-great grandfather, John Lind, b. 1880 in Scotland, who eventually made his way to Hawaii, where he died in 1962. That John Lind’s family is now a significant part of the community in Hana, Maui.

He was a cousin of my grandfather, William Grace Lind, whose son (yet another John Lind) moved to Hawaii from California in 1939. That John was my dad.

I eventually figured out that Brad and I are third cousins, twice removed, as genealogists would count it.

His grandmother is my third cousin, and Brad and I are separated by two generations, hence the “twice removed.”

Our most recent common ancestor was a John Lind, born August 1800 in West Calder, Midlothian, Scotland. He married Isabella Shields in 1832.

My dad’s family descended from a son, John Lind, born 1840.

Brad and his family are descended from another of the couple’s sons, James Lind, born 1845.

This all makes my head spin, with so many generations of naming children John, William, James, and Thomas.

In any case, we met Brad and his wife, Sapi, last year when we were in Auckland.

Yesterday we took a 30-minute Uber ride and met them at The Landing restaurant in Riverhead, West Auckland, not far from their current home in Kumeu, which turns out to be the home of several vineyards.

The restaurant brags that it is has been around for more than 160 years, and holds New Zealand’s second-oldest liquor license.

From the history of Riverhead:

Nestled on the shores of the upper Waitemata, The Riverhead is steeped in local history and played a part in the development of early New Zealand, with thousands using the wharf and hotel as the gateway to lands in the north prior to the completion of roads and railway.

After lunch, Sapi guided us to several nearby “Op Shops,” what we would call thrift stores, where we prowled around for a while and even found a few small treasures, like this nice little box that I spotted and Meda approved. Meda also found a couple of bits of jewelry, which I’ll post photos of some other time.

We then adjourned to their house for tea and conversation, where we received an excited welcome from Watson, shown here with Brad.

There’s more to report, but it will have to wait until later.

We are on a ten-day trip to Auckland, New Zealand, leaving our cats in the care of a very good cat sitter. Don’t worry, we’ve been to Auckland several times over the years, although we’ve never managed to get to other parts of this beautiful country.

Meda was previously invited to lecture about her research at the University of Auckland several times, and also attended several conferences here before retiring, so we’ve learned a bit about the area and enjoy wandering the city. Our summer is Auckland’s winter, so it is also our chance to visit the mild but damp winter down under. And I have found several Lind-family “cousins” living here who descend from either a sibling, or a cousin, of my paternal grandfather, William Grace Lind, who was born and raised in Scotland before coming to the U.S. more than a century ago. They are second or third cousins, depending on whether descended from a sibling or a cousin.

Our flight from Honolulu at Auckland International Airport was scheduled to depart at 10:15 a.m. on Sunday. Heeding instructions to allow additional time to catch our international flight, we arrived at the airport about 7 a.m. via Charley’s Taxi, scheduled in advance via their mobile app. Being Sunday, there was little traffic on the way to the airport.

The only problem with our plan was that Air New Zealand staff didn’t open their stations and start processing passengers and bags until 7:15 or a few minutes afterwards.

Hint to ANZ: In one of the many communications in advance of the flight, it would be useful to let passengers know how far ahead of the scheduled flight they should arrive at the airport.

But we stood dutifully in line, and it wasn’t that long before we were able to do the first of several passport checks, turn in our suitcases, and start walking to toward the TSA security check-point. On this Sunday morning, there was no line at TSA Pre-Check, and we breezed through.

Air New Zealand is part of United’s Star Alliance, and the flight was departing from Gate G3 in the United Wing. That gave us plenty of time for coffee and a light breakfast snack in the United Club lounge overlooking the gate, which was included with our upgrade to Premium Economy seating. When we arrived, we were literally the only non-employees in the lounge, but it was soon bustling with others waiting for the same flight.

When the flight was finally ready for boarding (a 787-9 “Dreamliner”) there was not the controlled chaos we have come to expect on a United departure, and there was only a short wait before we were in our seats, where we found a pile of airline swag waiting…a full-size pillow (where do you put that until you need/want it?), a set of over-the-ear headphones, a small cardboard container with the usual toothbrush, a sleep mask, and a few other items I couldn’t identify.

The difference in boarding, we decided, is that the aisles weren’t crowded with passengers hauling wheeled bags and hoisting them into overhead bins. The difference was dramatic, and I have to wonder whether this was a deliberate result of airline policy. That’s something I’ll have to look up.

Seating in our section was 2-3-2. There was a larger business class section up front, where people were paying astronomical prices to be pampered across the Pacific. Our upgrade was a splurge, and I can’t imagine paying what was required to be up front.

Our flight left the ground at 10:20 a.m. Monday and touched down on the ground in Auckland at 6:40 p.m. Hawaii time (4:40 NZ time) on Tuesday after crossing the International Dateline.

Flight time is almost exactly the same as Honolulu to Chicago O’Hare, which is also just over 8 hours. Time seemed to crawl for the first several hours, but the last couple of hours slipped by quickly.

Clearing customs and “New Zealand Biosecurity” was quick. Prior to travel, you have to apply online for an electronic travel authorization, and then complete a customs declaration (a simple online process) no more than 24 hours before the flight. We visited Auckland last summer, and the two-year travel authorization we received then covered this trip as well, and the process was transparent to us.

We were through the whole entry process, including retrieving our bags and determining that our opened bags of wasabi iso Peanuts and hot arare did not threaten the country’s biosecurity. We had used Air New Zealand’s website to schedule a cab to get us from the airport to our hotel, and the driver was waiting just outside the exit from the customs area. Before we knew it, we were checking in to our room at the JW Marriott Hotel in Auckland’s central business district.