By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

By this time, you've received your 2002 telephone book or it's on the way. As a sensitive barometer of Our Honolulu, the news it brings is both good and bad.

The bad news is that we're still struggling to recover from the economic punch of Sept. 11, 2001. The only business category in the Yellow Pages that showed a gain over last year is contractors, up a page from 11 to 12.

Plumbing stayed even at 13 pages. All the other categories — from restaurants to roofers and veterinarians and beauty parlor operators — took fewer pages than last year.

The good news is that our families — the Lees and Wongs and Smiths and Nakamuras — continue to gradually expand as if obeying a law of nature that has nothing to do with profit and loss, the stock market or unemployment.

It's true that observing this phenomenon is something like watching the grass grow. Kamehameha's statue moves as fast. I got all excited in 2001 when the Lees jumped from 26 1/2 columns in the main phone book to 32 in one year.

But I suspect this was due less to procreation than to a bigger type face that allowed fewer names per column inch.

However, if we go back to 1965, about when I started reviewing the phone book, the Lees filled only 12 columns. At that time, nobody heard of the Smiths and Johnsons and Williamses. Now they're edging up toward the top 10 families in Our Honolulu.

So it's no surprise that the pecking order of our leading families did not change in this year's phone book. They are, in descending order, the Lees, Wongs, Kims, Youngs, Chongs, Chuns, Smiths, Chings, Laus, Lums, Nakamuras, Johnsons and Williamses.

Where the action takes place is in the Yellow Pages. My 2002 survey leads me to suspect that attorneys eat out a lot. I've come to this conclusion because restaurants and attorneys are running neck and neck for buying the most space in the Yellow Pages.

Could there be some sort of symbiotic relationship?

As we progress into the new millennium, the image of Our Honolulu presented in the Yellow Pages is dramatically different from what it was 25 years ago. Since that time the automobile, for decades the Yellow Pages champion, has dropped way back to fourth place, an indication of how much trouble cars are causing.

First, attorneys jumped ahead of autos, with doctors close on their heels. Then, out of nowhere, came restaurants charging into the lead where they are now. The score is restaurants, 70 pages; attorneys, 69 pages; doctors, 46 pages; cars, 41 pages; dentists, 31 pages.

After that we drop down to storage and plumbing at 13 pages and contractors at 12 pages, then carpets, real estate and air conditioning at 10 pages. Movers, termite treatment and churches are tied at nine pages; schools have eight. Then come roofers, veterinarians and travel agents, six pages each.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.