COMMENTARY
Larger-than-life Lindsey Pollock was Hawai'i's greatest ambassador

By Rick Carroll

In another era, Lindsey Nahoakapuokalani Pollock would be hailed as some kind of chief.

He helped make the Pacific smaller by linking far-flung islands with fast-flying planes. He was the Hawaiian who brought the silver bird out of the blue sky to islands.

He made back-fence neighbors out of distant folks. They knew his name on little islands with grass landing strips.

He didn't fly the planes. No, he made sure they came and went with a certain style.

He was first to make sure Hawai'i's hula girls and boys got to Hilo and the world-famed Merrie Monarch Festival.

He got canoe paddlers back and forth across the Pacific so they could rekindle lost Polynesian voyaging skills.

He made cream puffs fly from Makawao, and sent saimin home to Honolulu from Lihu'e. (Imagine Island life without omiyage!)

He treated locals like Hollywood somebodies. He rolled out the red carpet for the island-hopping King of Tonga, whose entourage took every first-class seat on the flight from Nuku'alofa. (I once sat next to a lady-in-waiting with a royal complaint: She got stuck in steerage because of an overload of lords.)

No mission was too big or too small. There were medical emergencies that saved lives of broken-neck surfers, and food deliveries that made outer-island life so much sweeter. (Once, I delivered "air-flown" pizza and kim-chee door to door in Kalaupapa after residents, decrying bland Moloka'i fare, put out a call for fast food.)

A big, round-faced man with an enigmatic grin, Lindsay was unflappable, delighted by life. He made you feel good, like a favorite uncle.

Jet lag never slowed him; he logged thousands of air miles and seemed to appear simultaneously on both sides of the dateline.

He was big in small places, especially those islands where the plane still comes only once a week.

Years passed, Hawaiian Airlines changed hands, and Lindsey left to indulge his lifelong passion for tropical flower growing. (He created the award-winning floral arrangements for Outrigger Hotels.)

Blessed with unique people skills, Lindsey had a magic touch with everyone.

One night on Moloka'i, he was ushering a busload of Mainland travel writers who somehow attracted a wandering spirit on the way back to Kaluakoi.

"We were going up the hill after leaving Kaunakakai," Lindsey said, "when the bus slowed to a crawl."

The engine sputtered and died, and the bus coasted to a halt, then started going again, then stopped. Everyone wondered what was going on.

Lindsey knew; he stood up and said, in his big, bold voice, "Get off our bus and let us go."

The engine started, and the bus purred all the way back to Kaluakoi.

"How did you do that?" I asked.

"Some day," he said, grinning, "I may tell you."

He lived on O'ahu's North Shore at Kawela Bay in an old Hawaiian homestead house next to Puna 'Ulua pond. The saltwater pond, celebrated in Hawai'i literature by John Dominis Holt, is linked to the sea by a lava tube and named for the 'ulua, the big fish that come and go on the tide.

One day at the pond, Lindsey told me a mermaid, known as the Lady of Puna 'Ulua Pond, sometimes appears, rippling the dark surface.

"You can't see her," he said, "but children can."

I never saw her, not then or ever. A 12-year-old girl named Malia did, and so did Lindsey Pollock.

Lindsay died the other day of cancer. He was 59.

The local papers identified him as a "cultural authority" and a "public relations executive," but that's like saying Duke Kahanamoku was a surfer.

Lindsay expanded his role by word and deed into something far beyond putting a spin on this or that. He was an ambassador of Hawai'i, a Pacific Rim diplomat. His Polynesian presence in a haole-owned corporation gave it priceless credibility.

He put Hawai'i in Hawaiian Airlines.

His cultural sensitivity and natural style enabled distant people to share not just remote destinations but ideas, events and trade.

Whole generations of Hawai'i tourism leaders have done less.

Aloha, Lindsey. Your bright flower is wilting. The lady of the pond weeps.

Rick Carroll is the author of "Madame Pele: True Encounters With Hawaii's Fire Goddess" and the creator of "Hawaii's Best Spooky Tales." Reach him at rickcarroll@vol.com.