Hawaii is not the only place where toilet paper has become scarce on store shelves. Around America and in countries around the world, people are doing just what the folks at the Hawaii Kai Costco have done: buying up toilet paper in reaction to the threat of the coronavirus and the fear of what quarantine might entail.

But Hawaii has a long history of this. Hawaii is the birthplace of surfing, the land of lengthy goodbyes and the tradition of hoarding toilet paper.

Ask the kupuna generation. They’ll tell you stories of dock strikes and panic buys. Way out here in the middle of the Pacific, Hawaii has a light trigger when there’s the potential of import disruptions. Every little storm warning and shipping problem sends people running for toilet paper, rice, canned goods and, more recently, bottled water.

The height of Hawaii’s toilet paper hoarding, though, may have been the Great Toilet Paper Run of January 1974.

The newspapers back then featured multiple front page stories with blaring headlines like “Needless panic strips stores.”

Story after story detailed the hysteria that was triggered by a combination of factors: the oil crisis, Hawaii’s history of dock strikes and uncertain ship deliveries, and the overall unease of the ongoing Watergate scandal. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin pointed out that Hawaii residents “have confronted shortages of varying magnitudes at least 17 times since World War II.”

On top of that, there was apparently a shortage of local eggs, caused partly by the weather and mostly by the hens just being out of sorts, but that led to what was called “scare buying” and, as a local merchant put it, “Scare buying is one sure route to shortage.” When Hawaii people are scared, they buy toilet paper.

In 1974 an executive from a local paper products distributor told the newspaper, “I passed a woman loading a case of toilet paper in her car yesterday. When I asked, she said she uses only one roll a week for her small family. But she’d heard there was a paper shortage. Now she had enough toilet paper to last her for two years while somebody else will not have any.”

Store managers recounted trying to talk sense to their customers, who madly snatched up as much toilet paper as they could. One manager was so distraught he yelled at the reporter, “I don’t want to talk about it!” and the paper printed his quote to illustrate his frustration.

The Honolulu Advertiser even consulted a professor of psychology from UH Manoa to explain the minds of toilet paper hoarders:

“We are in a period of little action, and because government is unable to act, people do whatever they feel they have to do,” Dr. Helge Mansson said. “People who hoard see themselves as being responsible in providing for their families. While others may consider them antisocial for hoarding, they see themselves as being quick- witted. Psychologically, people build up a fantastic amount of self- justifications for their behavior.”

The Great Toilet Paper Run of 1974 ended the way most of these things do: gradually. The stores got more stock, and people were reassured and slowly began to work through their stash.

But there was one story that year about a big retailer that ended up with a warehouse overstocked with toilet paper. Then, somebody came up with a brilliant ploy. The store announced that it was going to sell only one roll per customer. The perception of shortage kicked the whole thing up again, and the store sold out four containers in five days, at full price.