WEBVTT - Short Stuff: History of Spring Break 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:06.120 Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:09.400 there's Chuck and everybody else's present in spirit, and this 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:14.400 is stuff you should know, short stuff. Where the boys are? 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:17.279 Is that the song? I think? 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:17.400 So? 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.319 Huh? I always think of that Book of Love song. 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:23.040 I want to be THEO. 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.240 What wait you say yours? I want to hear it. 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.040 Oh, I want to be where the boys are? But 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:34.480 I'm not loud. You've not heard that song. 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:37.159 I didn't know lou Reid sang a song like that. 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:41.000 Do I sound like lou Reid? I'll talk about you. 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:42.760 Kind of speak singing, which is lou Reid's deal. 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:45.879 Yeah, I do speak sing I can't put my all 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:46.320 into it. 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:47.959 Like, hey, man, like a lot of people have made 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:49.280 great careers out of speak singing. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.839 No shame, that's right, all right. I might tick you 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.400 up on that and become a speak singer, that's right. 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.680 I mean that's the gateway to being a white male rapper. 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.800 So just be careful, okay, I will be careful. If 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.839 you see me with like three lines cut into my side, 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.640 the side of my head, maybe take me out for 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.440 some drinks and give me some the talking to. 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:13.960 I've done that accidentally. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.120 Oh I have too, Well, you me did it accidentally 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.679 to me, But I'm talking intentional. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.319 Okay, Yeah, all. 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.600 Right, so we're talking spring break. That's why you're saying, 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:29.319 can you sing it again? Please? Where the boys are lovely? 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:34.280 That is actually they think where spring break. The American 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:39.080 institution of going to warm places in the spring, usually 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:42.920 from northern universities and getting plastered for a week, came 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.320 from a book called what's it called Chuck? 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:49.720 Where the Boys are not bad? 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.840 But okay, we'll speak singing. Uh, you gotta say where 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:55.080 the boys. 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.000 Are Okay, I just want to be in your group. 0:01:57.680 --> 0:01:59.960 Oh yeah, we could do that. We could do speak 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.280 singing barbershop duo, not even a quartet. 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.680 Yeah, that's a such a great bad idea. 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:10.560 Oh we can also add the slide whistle you got 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.359 me too? Is like an extrast thing. 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:14.200 Yeah yeah, I mean that's our only instrument as far 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:14.880 as I'm concerned. 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.919 Yeah, so where the boys are? 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:23.440 All right? So you mentioned where the boys are a 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.720 bunch and that that was sort of the big launching 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:27.320 point for spring Break. But we got to back up 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.880 a little bit to some sort of ground laying. I 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:35.320 guess people since the nineteenth century. Apparently, American college students 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:37.920 even way back in the eighteen hundreds would take little 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.119 weekend breaks during the spring to like hot springs and 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:44.480 maybe even to the coast to kind of you know, 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.320 get themselves right. And in the twentieth century, early in 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:53.799 the twentieth century, the road trip was born, and women colleges, 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.679 you know, women only colleges were born, and you pair 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.640 those things together, and you're gonna get girls going to boys. 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.000 And so all of a sudden, members of the opposite 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.040 sex were really hanging out with each other a lot more. 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.799 Yeah, this is when the fifth met Muffy. 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.040 That's right. And then people started drinking a lot more, 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:14.520 like kind of out in public, Like if you went 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:16.640 to the military at eighteen, like it was okay to 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:18.840 you know, go to a dive bar and get drunk, 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.480 but that was kind of frowned upon in college. But 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.600 starting you know, around the early nineteen twenties or so, 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:27.239 college kids started drinking. 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:31.400 Yeah, that whole jazz age, I'm guessing right. Probably, So 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.400 there was an act of nature, a force of nature 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.520 that also plays into this pretty prominently, the Great Miami 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.920 Hurricane of nineteen twenty six that said try again Miami 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.000 and wipe Miami clean, and so the city had to 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:49.160 rebuild into the version we know today. But as a 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.960 part of this, the nearby city of Fort Lauderdale was like, 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:55.840 we need to get people back here, so we're going 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.280 to do the thing that cities have always done and 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.600 still continue to do to attract tourists, and that is 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:03.760 build an Olympic sized swimming pool. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.520 Yeah, I think it was more of a novelty at 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:10.720 the time because that was certainly the first one in 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.400 Florida in nineteen twenty eight, and not too long after, 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.240 like five or six years later, there was a swimming 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.040 coach from Colgate University in upstate New York, where it's 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.640 very cold, who said, hey, guys, it's very cold and 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.760 there aren't a lot of indoor training pools here, so 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:29.960 let's go down to a Florida. They built this wizbang 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.680 new pool in Fort Lauderdale. They went down there, they 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.920 trained in the spring, and by nineteen thirty eight, the 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.279 College Coaches Swim Forum was formed and word had gotten 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.640 around that it was like a good place to go train, 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.680 which accidentally coincided with an opening of sort of a 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.240 younger person's bar called the elbow room. 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:52.800 Yeah, in the Sea Breeze Hotel. It sounds like my 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.119 kind of place, man, a hotel bar. Love those same. 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.200 I don't even drink anymore, and I still love a 0:04:58.200 --> 0:04:59.000 good hotel bar. 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:00.000 They're great. 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.800 So yeah, these college athletes, these swimming, these swim teams 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:07.760 now had a place to be Florida and a place 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.880 to party, the elbow Room, And it's just started to 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.200 kind of get back that, like, hey, there's this really 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.279 fun thing that the swim teams are doing. Other swim 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:19.680 teams kind of took part in this too, and this 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.839 idea kind of spread beyond swim teams, college swim teams 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.560 to just college students who started to come down to 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:28.279 Fort Lauderdale and droves. 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.599 Yeah, like I like to drink, I like to to flirt. 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:33.560 I like to be in the sun. 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:35.520 I like a farmer's hand. 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.880 That's right. So maybe that's a great place to take 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.799 a break. And we'll be right back with where. 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.240 The boys are. Where the boys are. 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.919 Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck. 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.799 Want to learn a thing or two from Josh cam Chuck. 0:05:54.080 --> 0:06:09.800 It's stuff you should know, all right, shot. 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:09.920 Stop? 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:19.000 Yes, uh so, yeah, I guess we're finally at where 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.120 the boys are, right, because things have been kind of 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.279 picking up steam through the forties and the fifties. But 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.360 then in nineteen fifty eight there was an English teacher 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:32.080 from Michigan State University. His name was Glendon Swarthout, and 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.400 he said, hey, kids, I want to hang with you. 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.640 Let's go down to spring Break. I'm going to follow 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:41.640 you around and I'm just going to write about your escapades. 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.000 And apparently it was debaucherous enough and just crazy enough 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.279 that he managed to write a book out of like this, 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.360 essentially this week in Fort Lauderdale with some of his students, 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:58.760 and the name of that book was Unholy Spring, Unholy Spring, 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:00.479 Unholy Spring. 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:03.240 That's right, he changed the name to Where the Boys Are. 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:07.520 Of course, the book was a pretty big hit, but 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:09.880 the movie really put it on the map when MGM 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.400 put that out not too long after, and that's what 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.080 really changed things. All of a sudden, Florida was on 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.480 display as like where, well, where the boys are and 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:21.160 where the girls are and what you need to be 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:25.800 doing every spring. And you know, we got some loose 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.120 numbers here. I'm sure it's kind of hard to put 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.240 great numbers on the nineteen sixty spring Break growth, but 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.720 they said that you know, basically tens of thousands of 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.080 students started coming after that movie came out, and by 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:43.239 the mid nineteen eighties, like close to four hundred thousand 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.240 students were going just to Fort Lauderdale. 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.960 Man, in Fort Lauderdale, I mean, it's a city in Florida, 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.120 but you had three hundred and fifty thousand extra people 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.400 for over the course of like a month. Probably, Like 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:57.440 that's that's an impact. 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.880 For sure, a bad impact at times. 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.240 Yeah, Like that's the thing. If you trace the history 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.800 of spring Break, it's like fun, fun, fun, fun, it's 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.040 awful now and then murders and rapes, fun, fun, fun, 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.120 fun awful, fun fun fun awful, And from what I 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.880 can gather, Chuck, it turns awful when the middle aged 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.800 dudes show up. That's when it turns awful because they 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:21.960 should not be there. They have no business being there. 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.280 Spring Break is for college kids. When the older dudes 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:27.800 show up, that's when things get dark and bad. 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.480 Yeah, although high school kids, I went in too Panama 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.000 City in high school, and it was dark and bad 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:34.720 with high school kids. I can assure you of that. 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:37.199 I did too, because I was a good kid at 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:37.560 the time. 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:39.920 I was not a good kid at the time. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.120 Yeah, I mean I was there. I was at those parties, 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.600 but uh, you know, I was drinking my apple juice. 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:47.000 I was pretending like I was drinking beer. 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:48.800 Oh really, were you really? That's awesome. 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.280 I was very cringey to look back upon that, but. 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:53.440 I think it's sweet and really charming. 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.800 Actually, yeah, I commit that. Now. I'm going to be 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:58.960 fifty five this weekend. All bets are off. 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:00.120 I know, how do you feel? Well? 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:02.520 I feel like I'm fifty three. 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:04.400 You should have said spring break. 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.560 So spring break is going bad in Florida. In Fort Lauderdale, 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:12.600 the town obviously gets together and this seems to be 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:14.480 sort of the rule and say, all right, we got 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.680 to start curbing some drinking laws. The mayor goes on 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.080 Good Morning American says you need to start going to 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.320 other places, and they did so all of Florida became destinations. 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:26.840 Panama City where I went, like I said, senior year 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.079 eighty nine, and then Daytona Beach was another big one, 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.560 and Daytona really grew after MTV in nineteen eighty six 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.520 started broadcasting live for their MTV spring break party stuff. 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:41.959 Yes. The first year in nineteen eighty six they had 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:44.959 live musical performances that was just a part of everyone. 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.760 But in that year they had performances by the Beastie 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:50.439 Boys and Starship. 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.200 Yeah. I mean who else would you get? What else 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:55.040 goes together better? 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.119 And I bet we can guess what song Starship performed 0:09:58.559 --> 0:09:59.040 stare up. 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.160 Yeah, yeah, and we built the city. 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.360 Those are the two that we built the city though, 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:06.079 is what also appears in one of the better Simpsons 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.679 episodes where the family goes on spring break and I 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.839 really keep singing that song the whole time. That's really 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.679 funny and what's cool. I just can't not mention it. 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.920 That's the second spring break episode the Simpsons did. The 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.640 first one was where Bart and Milhouse and Nelson and 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.480 at least one or two other kids like just ran 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.960 away and went on spring break and ended up wearing 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:31.640 wigs that they got out of the top of the 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.480 sunsphere in Knoxville. And it's a good one. 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:35.559 That's fun. 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:37.559 Okay, So go watch those two, I think is the 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:39.240 point of this episode. 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:43.360 That's a takeaway. So spring break's going big in Florida, MTV. 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.000 Is there in the eighties and eighty six, like I said, 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.200 but before that, in nineteen eighty three, a very key 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.959 thing happened right here in the atl when some black 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.240 college students got together. And we have some great historical 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.480 black colleges and universities here in Atlanta, and not all 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:01.679 of them went somewhere else for spring break. So one 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.400 year and eighty three they got together and said, hey, 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:06.959 we're stuck here on campus. Let's have a big picnic 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.319 and a big party. This is coming off of you know, 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.000 the song La Freak by Chic a few years earlier, 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:15.840 and of course the song super freakd from Rick James 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:17.880 was big and it was a picnic, so they called 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:23.520 it Freaknick. And Freaknick became a huge mangus deal in 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.200 Atlanta and with people coming from all over the country 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.199 and world even but it blew up Atlanta for about 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:30.920 a decade or so. 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:38.000 Yeah, like hundreds of thousands of people, ostensibly black college 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:42.319 students mostly just came to Atlanta and shut the town 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:46.720 down because the main thing of Freaknick was cruising right, 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.160 and you just all of a sudden had an extra 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:54.360 few hundred thousand cars on the main drags throughout Atlanta, 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.800 and like it would take you hours to get places 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.000 that it should take you ten fifteen minutes because there 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.120 were so many cars just stopped in the middle of 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.200 the road. That was Freaknick. It was nuts. 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.320 Yeah, I mean people started saying home and you know, 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.280 white people were terrified because there were black young black 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:16.599 people having a lot of fun out in the streets, 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.080 and the incidents of crime were here and there, but 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:22.720 nothing like it was being portrayed in the news as 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:27.040 like this sort of you know, lawless situation happening. There's 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.760 a great documentary that I can't recommend enough that was 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.760 out a couple of years ago on Hulu called Freaknick 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:37.199 The Wildest Party. Never told that Atlanta's own germane to 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.679 pre produce. But it's it's great. How they recommend watching it. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.040 Yeah, I think it actually did start to get pretty 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.840 dark in the in the final years. It did, but 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:51.120 and again because middle aged dude showed up. But one 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:52.679 thing you can do if you want to crack down 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.079 on spring break is make one or two new laws 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.880 and it'll completely choke the life out of it. For Freaknick, 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:01.920 they passed a lot about cruising and like that basically 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:03.920 broke it up because that was the point of freaknik. 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.960 Panama City Beach where we both went for spring break. 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.640 That was for a very long time that accepted the 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.760 spillover from Fort Lauderdale and became a spring break mecca 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:19.600 in and of itself. And in twenty fifteen it got 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.800 really bad. There was like a it was just I 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.920 think it was like how it normally was, but just 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.160 some really ugly stuff got out on social media. There 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.080 was a girl who was unconscious and sexually assaulted and 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.400 there was a video of that that made its round. 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.400 Eight people were shot in one house at one point. 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.720 So Panama City got some really bad rep right then, 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:43.800 and they did something about it. They said you can't 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.680 drink on the beach anymore, and that was that took 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:48.600 care of it from that point on. 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.160 Yeah, there's still a band, it's only in March, which 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.960 is generally when spring break is ours is in April, 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.400 but there it usually is in March. So yeah, that 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.719 kind of did away with it, and you know, that's 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.000 kind of deal with spring break. There are definitely a 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:07.280 lot of universities now that do alternative things, like programs 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:09.120 where you can say, like hey, don't go out and 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:10.840 just get drunk on the beach, Like, go volunteer for 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:15.120 Habitat for Humanity and they're a collegiate challenge, or you know, 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:19.280 go work for HIV advocacy. So plenty of other options 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.120 besides the traditional spring break for sure. 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.920 For sure. But yes, no matter what you're doing, whether 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.560 it's working for Habitat for Humanity or you're you know, 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:34.320 staggering around Fort Lauderdale every ten twelve minutes, you have 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:38.640 to shout spring break. That's right. Short stuff? Is that. 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.960 Stuff you should know? Is a production of iHeartRadio. For 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.560 more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:49.200 Podcasts 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:56.640 Or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.