The St. Mary’s College campus burst into life and activity amid the warm weather and sunshine. The students are restless from last minute attempts at their senior projects and papers. With exams looming ahead, some students need one last quick release before they bury themselves in books in their humid dormitories. That release? MayDay!
Does May Day involve throwing shoes in the trees? No. Does it involve throwing fellow students in a pond? Not exactly. There will be no cardboard boats, no National Bohemian Beer Can Hunts and no Frisbees in this tradition. Actually, there are no materials, necessarily involved on May 1st at all, including clothing.
It has been a long standing tradition on May 1st for St. Mary’s College students to strip down to their birthday suits and march proudly across campus. In the early years, mostly college staffers and few well-informed locals knew that noontime was when you could see the sleep deprived students in full bloom. Now, thanks to word of mouth, radio station announcers, and of course mass emails, there is hardly anyone in the tri-county area that does not know about this tradition.
Today, hundreds of people took long lunches, skipped work and made up excuses so that they could witness this sensational tradition. Crowds gathered near the campus center and across the road, holding up traffic for miles as painted college students bared all on their bicycles, in carts, and even – a first – rode across campus, bareback Lady Godiva style.
In the end, you saw rear ends cracking smiles as crowds laughed cheered and pointed in exhilaration to something that made one working day in their stressful lives a day to discuss, remember and look forward to the next May 1st to come.