The opening House session seemed to take forever yesterday, with performers from several schools taking center stage. By the time they finally adjourned just before 1 p.m., the crowds of free food seekers, lobbyists, constituents, and others waiting upstairs were restless. There were long lines outside offices serving meals, shorter lines at other offices with lesser fare.

The economy has already had an impact. There were fewer and more modest opening day gifts from interest groups, and some familiar corporate names must have limited this year’s freebies to a select few legislators.

Public employees are sweating with yesterday’s vague references to cuts in benefits. Actually, there was too much vague talk and not enough in the way of specific proposals. Vagueness is much more anxiety producing than specific plans. This is going to feel like a very long three and a half months before we reach the end of the session.

I’ll give a plug to the informative guide to being an “informed citizen” in the legislative process over at Capsun’s Corner (a great blog to stop by regularly, by the way).

Last week I got a call from Don Ray. I’ve seen his name for years in online forums for reporters on freedom of information and related investigative issues. Turns out he’s been contracted by the Grassroot Institute to assess the availability of public records in Hawaii and the success, or lack of it, in creating transparency in government.

The Grassroot folks are not usually at the top of my favorites list, but Don says he’s been given no direction and just told to test out the system. I can’t quarrel with that!

His initial efforts are turning into quite a long and depressing tale of government ineptitude, now being reported in a new blog, Hawaii Sunshine Chronicles.

Start at the beginning of his story and, as you have time, follow its subsequent course.

As House of Representatives Communications Director Georgette Deemer commented: “This should be required reading for all government agencies and public officials on how NOT to deal with media inquiries.”

Good advice, Georgette.

I paid another visit to my dad late yesterday. He reported a confrontation with a nursing assistant earlier in the day.

“She wouldn’t let me go to my meeting,” he said with a puzzled, somewhat chagrined look on his face. Apparently he had fixed in his mind that there was a business meeting he had to get to, and he wasn’t allowed to leave the building in order to attend the meeting.

A month ago, while in the hospital, he had a series of similar days. He worried about meetings missed, undelivered products, and similar things. Occasionally he would report, from his hospital bed, that he had just gotten back from the airport after spending time on Kauai.

I got the idea that, during bad periods, dementia can turn into a somewhat typical anxiety dream that keeps on playing while you’re awake. You know those dreams. You’re going off to class but can’t remember where the room is. Or there’s a meeting on the calendar but you can’t remember what it’s about. Or you’re traveling but can’t figure out what happened to your suitcase. The scenarios go on and on.

But what if you couldn’t wake up?

I distracted him with a few questions about that 1938 National Surfing Championship held in Long Beach, California, the year before he moved to Hawaii.

It took a while as his brain struggled to shift gears. After a minute or two, initially with some difficulty, he reached the right layer of memories.

The contest was held between the piers by the Long Beach Pike in a surf break then known as “Silver Spray”, he recalls. It was, he said, a winter surf spot typically maxing out in the 5-6 foot range, with occasional storm surf up around 10 feet.

He also said a funny thing, admitting that he was never a very good surfer. He had grown up in the water, was top dog in the Junior Lifeguards organization, did Sea Scouts, etc. As part of the Junior Lifeguards, he got into competitive paddling on those long, hollow paddle boards, and there began rubbing shoulders with surfers and so entered the surfing world.

But what he lacked in surfing skills, he made up for with organizational drive, putting together a planned competition and enlisting support from the Junior Chamber of Commerce to pull it off.

In those early days of amateur competition, he said, “it was a big trophy that drew participants, not money.”

In any case, my visit ended better than it began. I hope he felt the same way.