L Street Brownies take cool dip in Southie

By Peter Schworm, Globe staff

A horn blared, and a half-naked horde of all shapes and sizes sprinted through the brisk morning air. With a collective whoop, they dove across their watery finish line - a bone-chilling Boston Harbor.

It was a mad dash into 39 degree waters that those who watched safely from the shore called half-mad, but which devoted polar-bear plungers insisted was the perfect way to ring in the New Year.

About 500 hardy souls shook off the champagne cobwebs yesterday morning for the L Street Brownies traditional New Year's Day swim, and twice that many cheered them on. The oldest polar bear groups in the country, the South Boston stalwarts have braved the wintry waters each year since 1904, and the popular spectacle has inspired countless others to do the same.

"The Brownies are synonymous with Boston, and on New Year's, everyone's a Brownie," said Jack Dever, Brownies president. A quick dip in the ice-cold drink was refreshing, he said, good for body and mind.

"It strengthens the immune system, lowers the blood pressure," he said. "It releases your endorphins. It's a feel-good thing."

It was the debut Brownies plunge for Shoshanna Ehrlich, a 51-year-old from Brookline. Her first go-round, she ran into the Atlantic, then ran out just as quick. But she regrouped, summoned her nerve, then dove in head first.

"It's really, really, really cold," she said back on shore, sipping coffee from a mug in a bathrobe as though she were sitting at her kitchen table. "But it was worth it. I really wanted to actually swim. I think I took about three strokes."

Her friend, Sarah Leinbach, 70, who watched the proceedings bundled in a winter coat, hat, gloves and scarf, made a New Year's resolution to give it a go next year.

"OK, I'll do it," she said, a bit halfheartedly.

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