For three months four decades ago, I worked for Frank Fasi.

I was a lowly intern in what was then the Mayor's Office of Information and Complaint, the agency that dealt with the public and the news media.

The internship was the first summer job I had that didn't involve putting pineapples in cans. I remember being in a panic about not having suitable clothing, since neither pedal pushers, plastic aprons and rubber gloves nor the college-student, flower-child garb I wore to classes were appropriate attire for City Hall.

But with my mother's help and a few yards of Musashiya fabric, I put together a week's worth of dresses, traded sandals for regular shoes and presented myself for duty.

The main office was a pre-Dilbert, rabbit-warren of cubicles jammed with desks, dented file cabinets and buss-up typewriters that were to be the tools of my new trade. Only problem, there was no room for me.

So a small student desk was located and shoved to the back wall of the director's office. Through the summer, a mere 10 feet from the boss, I banged out press releases about minor issues, drafted boilerplate speeches for lesser officials and composed “;whereas”; resolutions praising Boy Scout troops, auto dealer associations and whoever else successfully lobbied for mayoral commendations.

Though I learned quite a bit about writing from the director—whose calm demeanor stood in contrast with the spirited man he represented—the real lessons came from just being there.

Since I was just an intern, no one paid me any mind. I sat invisibly while aides, Cabinet members, insiders and, from time to time, Fasi himself, bounced off ideas, grumbled about the City Council and the politicians down the street, traded assessments of the physical attributes of secretaries, kicked around ideas and yelled at each other.

It was a glimpse of hard-ball politics, the horse-trading involved in decision-making, the wheels and deals of running a city. On off hours, I worked as a volunteer, polling voters by phone in actual smoke-filled rooms where the mayor and his operatives puffed on cigars and pipes, running calculations on issues and policies. It was simultaneously exciting and unseemly.

Even so, it was a different time, not so much innocent as less orchestrated. Fasi had little use for managed events. He was straightforward and in that way he was an honest politician.

About a year later, after post-graduation travel landed me on the East Coast, I walked into the Hartford Courant, the biggest newspaper in Connecticut, looking for work.

The man who initially screened applicants thought it strange that a neophyte journalist from exotic, far-off islands was job-hunting in New England. He quickly flipped through my thin resume, but when he came to the entry about my City Hall internship, he took note, mentioning that the mayor of Honolulu was a Hartford native.

After a writing and editing test, he sent me to interview with an editor who also noticed the Honolulu-Hartford connection.

I'm not sure whether the link made a difference, but it did make both men take a second look. That same day, I was hired.