GEORGETOWN, SC (WBTW) – The South Strand welcomed the start of spring with a celebration that will knock your socks off.
In the 1970s, Bob Turner worked in an aluminum and stainless steel fabricating shop in Annapolis, Maryland. He was also a boat captain in the naval city.
Sawdust, paint and caulk would get stuck in his socks frequently, so he had to clean them out three or four times a day.
“The shavings in the middle of this fabrication, the process of fabricating, would go down the shoes,” Turner said.
On the first day of spring one year, the boat captain celebrated the end of a brutally cold winter.
“It was 75, 78 degrees,” said Turner. “The sun was out. I just looked looked at my socks and said, ‘I’m tired of this.'”
Turner threw the old socks in a paint tray, poured some thinner on them and lit them on fire.
He also kicked back and enjoyed a beer.
“A couple of people walked by, they saw I had one or two extra beers,” Turner said. “They said, ‘Can I have a beer?’ I said, ‘Sure, but it’s going to cost you those socks.'”
Right there, “Burning of the Socks” was born.
“Yes, they burned their socks at the equinox,” Turner said, reading the annual poem before socks are thrown in a fire pit. “You might think that’s peculiar, but I think it’s not.”
With a gumbo cookoff and live music, the South Carolina Maritime Museum celebrated “Burning of the Socks” for the eighth year on Thursday. The sock-burning legend has spread to several coastal communities throughout the country.
Those at the Maritime Museum say it’s a great way to welcome in the spring weather and spring cleaning.
“I think that’s awesome to get rid of that old stuff, whatever it is, whether it’s your socks or junk,” said Linda Millmine, who’s visiting from the Detroit, Michigan, area.
Millmine and her friend Leigh Cotter, who recently moved from Charlotte to the DeBordieu community, weren’t prepared with old socks, but that could change in 2020.
“I have no socks either, but I’ll bring them next year,” Cotter said while laughing.
Turner says he’s happy his tradition has caught fire.
“The first day of spring is a great time to bring people out of the woodwork, people you haven’t seen for a while, have a good excuse to get together, laugh at each other and ourselves, burn socks just for the sake of burning socks and saying goodbye to winter,” he said.
The roughly 30 people at the museum kicked off their socks and kicked off another spring.
“Burning of the Socks” raised money for the museum, which opened on the city’s waterfront in 2011.