Decades ago, a Maryland sailor burned his winter socks. Now it's a spring tradition

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – How do you welcome spring after one of the coldest winters in decades? In the Chesapeake Bay town of Annapolis, by burning your socks.

This annual festival, which draws hundreds, is held in the city's Eastport neighborhood and timed to coincide with the spring equinox. It's a potent blend of smelly socks, alcohol, music, piles of oysters and more than a hint of pyromania.

"I like to watch the socks burn, something about that," acknowledges Mary Keller, a lifelong Annapolis resident.

For nearly 50 years, the Annapolis Oyster Roast & Sock Burning has marked the long-awaited return of warmer days to the East Coast boating hub — and time for sailing season to begin again.

Kelly Swartout, vice president of development at the Annapolis Maritime Museum & Park, explains that it all started in 1977 "during one of the coldest seasons we had." The bay froze over and "a local sailor got so fed up with the cold weather that he decided he was going to take his socks off and burn them."

Bob Turner, a boatyard worker, is credited with starting the tradition. According to Baltimore magazine, Turner found two things unbearable — winter and wearing socks — so he decided to toss his into a bonfire. He told his coworkers, "'I'm not putting them on again until next winter,'" he recalled to the magazine in 2015.

Many here in Annapolis are equally fed up after this past winter, using the same word to describe it: brutal.

How brutal? The start of the Annapolis Yacht Club's annual "Frostbite" sailboat race series — so named because it runs in the winter — had to be delayed this year because there was too much ice in Spa Creek and the Severn River, where the races are held. It's the first time that's happened in 20 years, according to Dick Neville, co-chair of the race committee. "We had a real old-style winter and it caught us a little bit by surprise," he says. "But it is what it is. And when the creek freezes, you can't race."

But today, the sun is shining and it feels like spring at this beach festival. Live music by the Eastport Oyster Boys and the Naptown Brass Band blares from the bandstand.

Scot Labin of Annapolis says he's been coming here for years and is eager to get his boat out of storage and back in the water. He holds up what he describes as "probably a blended nylon cotton sock" with a hole in it. Labin details the elaborate process of elimination that determines which socks to bring to the festival each year.

"You've got the Egyptian cotton socks that your mom got you — those are going into the fire," he says. With remote work these days, "you don't need the dress socks anymore. So, you know, those are going on the fire as well."

Labin says he's also a big fan of oysters — a Chesapeake Bay favorite — and there are copious amounts of them here.

Mike Dicus is an oyster expert; he's been shucking them for 35 years. He says he has already shucked "a couple thousand" for this event and expects to go through many more before it's finished. Referring to the part of Maryland that lies on the eastern side of the bay, Dicus demonstrates what he calls "the Eastern Shore stabbing style" — you come in from the front, not the back, "give it a little wiggle," and cut the two muscles.

The event's culmination nears as Annapolis poet laureate Jefferson Holland recites his "Ode to the Equinox," which explains that revelers "burn their socks at the equinox" because: "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 enjoyin' a brew."

With the last line of the poem hanging in the air, it's the signal for the main event: sock burning. Not an orderly affair, but a free-for-all. Dozens of socks of all colors and fabrics arc overhead and rain down on the sandy pit. Some land squarely in the flames, others miss the mark and have to be helped into the fire.

The annual festival is "really just an excuse to drink," says Labin, holding a beer and obviously feeling a bit flush. "But build it around sock burning and bringing out the old and ringing in the new and you've got a good party."