The Vernal Equinox will take place on Thursday, March 20th at 12:48 AM CDST, which means it is now time to burn your socks! The tradition of sock burning dates back to the mid 1980's when Bob Turner, manager of Annapolis Boat Yard, became tired of the winter Blahs. He would spend the whole season working on other people's boats and would wear the same socks each day and by the end of the season, well you can imagine. On the first day of Spring one year, he took off his socks, through them in a paint tray, doused with lighter fluid, and toasted Spring with a bottle of beer while they burned.
Technically, us die hard boaters wear deck shoes sans socks from the vernal equinox until winter arrives, or in the case of my son, he never wears socks (but that's another story) . This tradition has been commemorated in verse by Jefferson Holland, the Poet Laureate of Eastport in 1995:
Ode to Sock Burners
Them Eastport boys got an odd tradition
When the sun swings to its Equinoxical position,
They build a little fire down along the docks,
They doff their shoes and they burn their winter socks.
Yes they burn their socks at the Equinox;
You might think that's peculiar, but I think it's not,
See, they're the same socks they put on last fall,
And they never took 'em off to wash 'em, not at all.
So they burn their socks at the Equinox
In a little ol' fire burning nice and hot,.
Some think incineration is the only solution,
'Cause washin' 'em contributes to the Chesapeake's pollution.
Through the spring and the summer and into the fall,
They go around not wearin' any socks at all,
Just stinky bare feet stuck in old deck shoes,
Whether out on the water or sippin' on a brew.
So if you sail into the Harbor on the 21st of March,
And you smell a smell like Limburger sauteed with laundry starch,
You'll know you're downwind of the Eastport docks
Where they're burning their socks for the Equinox.
In case you are in the area, the Annapolis Maritime Museum will host its seventh annual Sock Burning ceremony to herald the first day of spring today, March 19th at 5:30 PM EDST.
http://www.annapolismaritimemuseum.org/socks.html
