Lessons Learned on the Corner in Kalihi

Words to Live By, Island-Style

When you accept, accept with your heart, and never forget about the gift and the giver

When you give, give with your heart. Then forget about it.

Hawai‘i’s local lifestyle has important lessons to teach — in the workplace and in the classroom, from the street corners of Kalihi to the boardrooms of Bishop Street. Lessons Learned on the Corner in Kalihi presents plain but powerful words to live by, written by Hawai‘i educator and businessman Wesley T. Park. Each of the book’s simple, homespun adages reflects the local values of Park’s own working-class roots and the warm, welcoming culture of the Aloha State.

“Wes has taught me a lot by example,” says First Hawaiian Bank chairman Walter A. Dods, Jr. in the book’s Foreword. “This book teaches us all that a few well-chosen words can have power.”

Raised in a blue-collar Honolulu neighborhood and educated at the University of Hawai‘i-Manoa, Park has held management positions in Hawai‘i’s academic and business communities. Park originally wrote his adages for his sons and grandson and was convinced to make them available in book form by his friends, so that these lessons could be shared with others. Or, in Park’s own words, from the book’s dedication: “Pass on, no pass back.”

Softcover, 168 pp.
Author: Wesley T. Park
Release Date: February 2005

Share