Second-floor Doors

Gas prices in the "upper fifties" and general inflation are offered as plausible explanations of a 1974 Hanover tourist season diminished well below 1972's "best all-time high, not likely to repeat," but significantly better than 1973's, when "gas Mortage and flood scare" were the culprits.

The source of this analysis is the most reliable barometer of the ebb and flow of the tourist tide hereabouts, the annual of Burdette E. (Bud) Weymouth '20, official greeter for the College and the local Chamber of Commerce, who answers an incredible gamut of inquiries from the information kiosk on the Green during the summer months.

From Reunion Week through Labor Day 1974, 6,492 persons stopped to ask Bud such standard questions as the whereabouts of the Admissions Office, Baker Library, the Hopkins Center, and the College Museum and some truly rare ones, the oddest of which was from "A native Floridian on his first run north who hoped to see second-floor doors for use when snow blocked lower levels."

"Early indications of a slowdown," according to Bud, who has been operating out of his familiar stand since he retired in 1953 from modern-language teaching at the Clark School, were "few inquiries for Tanglewood, Marlboro, and more distant summer theaters. Until mid-August, fewer calls for Franconia Notch. Fewer complaints. Service stations selling less gas. Many bicyclists and packers."

Sign of the changing Hanover scene: "Dartmouth's first girl guide, Wendy Burrell '75 (Glenview, Illinois) gave sparkle and enthusiasm to a task that becomes in time, I feel, monotonous and tedious."