Losing people

I was employed as a tour guide when the new headquarters of the Connecticut Bank and Trust Co. (now Bank of America) opened in Hartford, CT. in June, 1963. My boss, Mrs. Griggs, considered me to be "most conscientious". I took my job seriously, probably too seriously, but since it was the first job I had ever had, I was determined to be a crackerjack at it.

Sometimes the groups we guided were too large to fit into one elevator when we went from the mezzanine up to the sixth floor (the Trust department) so we were told to split up such groups and tell the other half to "join us on the sixth floor".

I split up a group about lunchtime one day, arrived at the sixth floor and found that the other half had not arrived. I waited around a bit, hoping they would appear but they didn't. I was a wreck for the rest of the tour and when it was over, I searched a couple of the other floors. I never again saw the second half of my group and no one reported seeing them.

Absolutely dejected, I reported back to the basement area where our lounge was situated and told Mrs. Griggs, "I'm sorry. I lost one half of my tour. I don't know where they are!"

She looked at me in disbelief and then started to laugh as I told her what happened. Then, giving me a big hug, she said, "Well, we'll just have to call them 'the ghost tour' and be on the watch for them." I finally began to relax. After that, every once in a while, after a long day, Mrs. Griggs would ask me, "So have you found that 'ghost tour' yet?" And everyone in the room would laugh.