Tag Archives: Earl

Spring Break Blessing

Title: Spring Break Blessing

Informant Info: William Braasch Jr. Billy is a 27 year old graduate student at Dartmouth who is originally from Lyme, NH, now lives in Norwich, VT, and has been climbing for 6 years. His favorite part about climbing is being outdoors and with his friends. Billy first learned about the Spring Break Blessing from older members of the DMC.

Date Collected: 5/25/16

Place Collected: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

Type of Lore: Customary, Ritual

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social/Cultural Context: When the DMC used to drive to Red Rock National Park for its annual Spring Break Trip, John Joline, who is known as the father of the DMC, would give a speech about Earl and Valarie, the climbing gods. Originally there was only one climbing god, Earl, but many DMC women went out on a spiritual adventure and realized how important Valarie is to the DMC. After this discovery, Valerie was Christened a second climbing god.

Associated File:

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Lore: The ritual itself involved John Joline blessing the cars and smashing a bottle of wine over the cars. It is important to note that some variations of this blessing beer was used instead of wine. Only after this blessing could DMCers begin the 30 hour drive to Las Vegas.

Informant’s Comments: This ritual ended a year ago when John Joline passed away. Basically, it was a way to kick off each spring break trip. Joline performed this ritual to remind climbers about mindfulness and encourage them to take a moment to reflect before embarking on their trip.

Collector’s Comments: The Spring Break Blessing  is an example of a ritual marking the beginning of something — this time the beginning of the spring break trip. This theme is consistent throughout the majority of rock climbing folklore collected. The Spring Break Blessing seems to be a way to encourage mindfulness before embarking on the trip. It also appears to be a good luck ritual ensuring that climbers will be safe and have fun over spring break.

Tags/Keywords: spring break, blessing, Earl, Valerie, rock climbing, DMC, trip, ritual, initiation