By David Shapiro

The first impression of Hawai'i I can remember when my father and I arrived in September 1964 is of Patsy Mink.

Political billboards, then legal, were everywhere as we drove to the Atkinson YMCA, where we stayed before settling in Hilo.

Mink stood out because she was the only woman running for high office at the time — and a formidable woman at that, with fresh good looks and a passionate voice for equality.

She won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and became a political icon who would provide many memorable moments over four decades.

I soon got a taste of her legendary constituent service when I desperately wrote her for help on a high school history project. A thick packet arrived from her office the next week, bringing the only decent grade I ever got from Hilo High.

Mink was the cause of my first ethics dilemma as a reporter. By 1972, she had become a leading national voice against the Vietnam War, even running for president in the Oregon primary.

Conservative editorial writers at the Star-Bulletin, where I worked, attacked her in a way that fellow reporter Buck Donham and I thought was unduly harsh.

We got a number of staffers to sign a letter to the editor saying so, and in a rare concession, the newspaper published a letter from its own staff criticizing its editorial.

Looking back, it was probably journalistically inappropriate. But it was a time of moral crisis in our country, and we thought our editors owed Mink respect for courageously voicing her honest convictions, even if they disagreed with her views.

When I went to Washington, D.C., to cover Hawai'i's congressional delegation in 1978, Mink was out of office and leading a liberal lobbying group. She invited me to lunch in the House dining room to tutor me on the ways of Congress.

She was still as popular as a pop diva there. I met everybody who was anybody, as a parade of former colleagues from both parties visited to pay respects.

At the 1980 Democratic National Convention in New York, Mink was one of the few Hawai'i delegates who supported Sen. Edward Kennedy's losing bid to unseat President Jimmy Carter.

Mink never took defeat easily. As the roll call unfolded, I found her on the convention floor defiantly waving her Kennedy banner as Carter delegates whooped it up. She spoke quietly of her fear that Ronald Reagan would easily defeat Carter and give conservatives unprecedented power.

The conspiratorial speculation surrounding Mink's illness and death is a sad sign of our political cynicism.

Hope is the only weapon a gravely ill patient has to fight with. Was it fair to expect Mink and her family to give up on her before they were ready, just to save us the cost of a special election? Would it have really changed anything in the end if the family had given more information about her condition?

We honor her best by replacing her in a dignified process in which nobody makes political capital of her death.

I recently visited Dave and Buster's with my grandson Corwin and marveled at young girls who deftly sank one shot after another at the basketball hoop, often besting their boyfriends.

Wholesome, healthful athletics are becoming as much a part of a young girl's life as a young boy's — all because of Patsy Mink and other visionary authors of the Title IX legislation promoting gender equity in sports.

That's a mighty legacy for a tiny lady from Maui.

David Shapiro can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net