This year, the Spring (or Vernal) equinox falls on March 20th, today. Astronomically (as in “according to Astronomy” and not to be taken colloquially as “huge”) speaking, this is a day during which the earth is neither tilted away from nor toward the sun on its axis; for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, the Spring equinox occurs in March and marks the “official” end of winter, the start of spring, warmer weather, and the countdown to my birthday in April. It is also the day on which is observed the Burning of the Socks.
Love them or hate them, feet are a part of life. I think the truest test of whether something is quintessentially human is whether there is a website on the Internet dedicated to it, and voila, we have feetfinder.com, which bills itself as “the safest, largest, and easiest website to view, buy and sell feet content,” boasting “With millions of users and over 5,000 five-star reviews, FeetFinder is the best website for anyone interested in buying or selling feet content.” I checked it out (so you don’t have to, unless you want to) and they have regular people’s feet, but they also have 672 galleries devoted to the feet of celebrities which is, I guess, a thing people are into, go figure! The last of these celebrity galleries was added only nine days ago: Michael Phelps’ Feet.
Socks are another matter. Maybe it’s a southern California thing, but if you were a boy growing up in a suburb of LA in the 70s, you had to have a pair of Vans. Vans were invented by Paul Van Doren, and his eponymous shoe company opened its first store in the nearby town of Anaheim in 1966.
By 1977, they had introduced the slip-on, a.k.a. Style #98, and I begged my mother for months to get me a pair. She finally gave in, and that’s when, at the age of 11, the arguing started.
In fact, I pinpoint the moment in my own “growing up” that I officially became a teenager and concluded I could disagree with my parents and have an opinion that differed from theirs as coinciding with the day I first put on my Vans slip-ons.
Without socks.
When my mother saw me she was beside herself. Incredulous, she asked, looking at my feet, “what do you think you’re doing?” I tried reasoning: you’re not supposed to wear socks with them… this is how all the boys wear them… socks would ruin them… do you want dad to get mad that you made me ruin a brand-new pair of expensive shoes because you made me wear socks? She wasn’t having it; my arguments were unpersuasive. As far as she was concerned, I was as naked as if I’d marched through the house unclothed, my bait and tackle flopping around in the wind with each step. It came down to one of two things: either I was going to put on socks or she was going to take the shoes back to the store. So I became the only boy in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area who wore his Vans with socks.
A decade later, as an undergraduate studying Philosophy in western Massachusetts I discovered that southern California was not the center of the universe as I had been led to believe. I learned of an annual New England tradition started following the winter of 1977-78 by a man named Bob Turner in the Eastport neighborhood of Annapolis, Maryland. That same year, as I was arguing with my mom on the other side of the country about wearing socks, Bob was fed up with them. He had had enough!
So on the first day of spring, 1978, after his shift at a boat building company called Proctor Masts USA, he and some friends grabbed some Budweisers and Bob lit his socks on fire.
And the next spring… and the next…
The ritual, held on the Spring equinox each year, quickly spread to other port towns up and down the northeast coast and throughout New England, becoming a community event featuring live music, an oyster roast, and recitation of the poem Ode to the Sock Burners (see below) by Jefferson Holland. It was meant to mark an end of the cold oppression of snowy winter and welcome the liberating, warm sunny days ahead. I attended one in 1989. I made sure to call my mom and tell her about it.
As a sock-burning virgin, I was handed a pamphlet. In it, I learned what to expect as we sped down the Massachusetts turnpike toward Boston in our borrowed 4-door 1987 Chevy Celebrity sedan, some of the guys quickly clipping their toenails so their feet looked nice in case there were girls there (who am I kidding?… we were all gay, so it was to impress – or not gross out – any cute guys we might run into).
I learned that under no circumstances were pantyhose to be thrown on the fire and that after removing your socks you were to remain sockless preferably until the following September but at least for the duration of the evening, with the pamphlet pointing out that “sockless,” as opposed to barefoot, meant you could put on footwear, without socks; barefoot meant without sandals, sneakers, espadrilles, a smart mule, or the like.
The burning of my socks wasn’t the great “proving myself smarter than my parents” moment I thought it would be. The next day as I went to put on my shoes, I paused for a moment, thought about going sockless, decided that was unseemly or at least unsanitary (according to my mom, which I do not believe is supported by anything approaching evidence, scientific or otherwise), put on my socks, and then my shoes. And I had a moment of great insight – my mom may have been on to something!
I am at an age now, or will be two weeks from today (note to self: mention your birthday twice – once in the opening and then again in the closing paragraph; that way, maybe people will send you presents) where I have begun to realize my parents were right. Not about everything, but on average about most things. That has certainly been my realization as I’ve gotten older. I only wish they were still around so I could tell them. I miss them a lot. I have added a page in their memory (and my dog Dennis who died in 2022) on my website.
Ode to the Sock Burners
by Jefferson HollandThem 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.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.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 20th of March,
And you smell Limburger sauteed with laundry starch,
You’ll know you’re downwind of the Eastport docks
Where they’re burning their socks for the Equinox.