Do you remember how slowly February went by? Here we are in the middle of March and March Break is already here. It is only fair to note that February was the COVID and CONVOY month with a lot of tension. March is the open-things-back-up month with the hope that mandates will fade into the past.
Ii've thought that March Break comes at an odd time considering what there is to do in March in Niagara for a break. When it comes to school breaks: There were always school breaks that were economically motivated - the potato harvest in New Brunswick and PEI, etc. Given what grows here and when, March break can't possibly serve that purpose in Canada and most of North America.
The origins are in the US in the 1950s - US colleges going to swim meets (the definitive year is 1938) in Florida. By the 1950s, spring break had turned into a beer festival - TIME published its first spring break story "Beer and the Beach" in 1959. And then the movie Where the Boys Are came out in 1960. It created the surge of college students to Fort Lauderdale. That associated spring break with boys meeting girls meeting boys. The hooking up then was called "playing house". The 1980s brought MTV to the party and televised the havoc to younger generations..
Writers decided that the two elements of beer and sex gave Spring Break an ancient origin. The Ancient Greek festival was a three-day awakening in spring dedicated to Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility. Now that's a stretch for the US. It seems to me that this interesting tidbit of history fills in the social media or news article.
In Canada our March Break seems more sedate - a mental health and cultural break, with "family" activities. Where it is a 'travel break' to Florida, again there are "family" activities like Disney World.
So there we are - March is half over and there will be less snow ahead than there is behind us.
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