Come Spring We Burn Our Socks

March 20, 2012

|In South Carolina Maritime Museum | Updates Blog

|By Sally Swineford

Over 130 sock burners showed up for the SCMM’s first annual sock burning PAR-TAY held on Sunday, March 18, 2012, just two days before the spring equinox.
A sock burning party requires a fire pit. Ours was mighty fine, don’t you agree?
Local raconteur, Johnny Weaver, entertained us with a history of the sock burning tradition which began in Annapolis, Maryland way back in the 1980’s.
Then, in typical Johnny Weaver fashion, he spun off into an amusing yarn about Georgetown’s own sock burning roots. You had to be there.
Our special guest, Ed Piotrowski, Chief Meteorologist for WPDE News 15, read “Ode to the Sock Burners”, which is traditionally recited before every sock burning ceremony in every boating town from Key West to Seattle.		Ode to the Sock Burners By Jefferson Holland, Poet Laureate of Eastport, 1995 Them Georgetown boys got an odd tradition  When the sun sinks to its Equinox 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 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 Sampit 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’ a brew. So if you sail into the Harbor on the 20th of March,  And you smell Limburger sautéed with laundry starch,  You’ll know you’re downwind of the Georgetown docks,   Where they’re burning their socks for the Equinox.
Then everyone welcomed Spring by pitching their winter socks into the fire. One woman tossed in a pair of pantyhose. A sailor lobbed an old pair of deck shoes into the flames. Someone even incinerated a winter jacket!
Singer-songwriter, John Lammonds, performed “Burn Your Socks” which he wrote just a few hours before the event…he’s just that good.		Our favorite part of John’s song: So, let’s burn our socks On the Grand Old Equinox And put our toes back in the sand And in the sea Well, it would be a sin To find yourself standing downwind In the smoke that comes from Setting your feet free One little piggy, two little piggies, Three little piggies, four Five little piggies, six little piggies, Seven little piggies more Eight little piggies, nine little piggies, Ten little piggies again Reach down grab your socks And throw ’em in
We set our piggies free!
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