Honolulu's annual best-seller, the 2005 telephone book, should be in your hands by this time. If you haven't noticed it yet, it contains disturbing indications of disintegration at the very roots of our society, a weakening of the pillars on which we depend: the First Families of Our Honolulu.

Unless the type is getting smaller, our First Families have shown a continuing trend, begun three years ago, of shrinking. There are fewer columns of Lees than there were last year, just as there were fewer then than the year before that.

The Wongs, the Kims, the Youngs, the Changs, the Chuns, the Smiths, the Lums and the Nakamuras are all fewer in number. What is going on here? The telephone company says it is using large type in the phone book. It looks like they are right. They must conclude that our First Families are losing their productivity, their vigor, their get-up-and-go.

Some of Honolulu's top 10 families have shrunk at a faster rate than others. For example, the Lees shrank from 29 3/4 columns in 2004 to 26 2/3 columns this year. The Kims shrank less than one column, from 17 1/3 to 16 1/2.

The Smiths are holding up fairly well, down two columns, 11 3/4 to 9 3/4. The Chings also have done well, shrinking only two-thirds of a column, from 9 2/3 to 9.

Those omnipresent Lees, of course, are still the top family followed by the Wongs. Here's a list of Honolulu's top 15 families this year, in descending order: Lee, Wong, Kim, Chang, Young, Chun, Smith, Ching and Lau (tied at nine columns), Lum, Nakamura, Johnson, Williams, Jones and Fernandez.

There's also movement in the yellow pages. Remember, this year's phone book does not reflect the effect of higher gas prices. Restaurants took a leap forward from 69 pages to 89 pages, putting restaurants in a tie with attorneys for being the first concerns of our pocketbooks.

Physicians took a hit, dropping from 59 pages at last count to 47 pages this year. But add other health-related expenditures to doctors and we get a very different picture. Total up the yellow pages devoted to chiropractors, health spas and dentists, as well as doctors, and you come up with a whopping 142 pages.

The only total that comes close to health in the yellow pages is the one that expresses the sum of expenditures on housing: real estate, movers, contractors, carpenters, termite treaters, roofers, plumbers, carpet-layers and air conditioners. This total comes to 125 pages. Real estate took the biggest jump, up from 16 pages to 20.

By contrast, there are only nine pages devoted to computers, seven to travel and 12 to schools.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.