It’s No Yoke--Spring Is Here : <i> A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.</i> --Emily Dickinson

Or even for a city councilman.

For example, on Tuesday afternoon, the Honorable Earl J. Prescott was on his hands and knees on his patio deck in Tustin, his face nearly scraping the concrete.

He was carefully balancing six dozen eggs upright on the broad ends of their shells. They stood at attention like a marching band.

This is what Prescott likes to do on the first day of spring.

“It’s an old Chinese tradition,” he said.

Some say it’s Japanese. Others say it’s Scandinavian. Some say it’s doo-doo.

Regardless, believers insist that on the vernal equinox, when the sun is directly over the Equator, the alignment of Sun and Earth affects gravitation, allowing eggs to balance more easily.

It also happens to be the official beginning of spring.

It occurred Tuesday at 1:19 p.m. Pacific time, when Prescott was just about done erecting his eggs. A breeze made the task more difficult and, by 2 p.m., had blown them all over, but they stood long enough for Prescott to claim that he had scientifically proved his point.

He said he first heard about equinox egg balancing on a TV newscast and tried it successfully during the autumnal equinox, the beginning of fall. And when he tried at an off-time, during the winter, he failed.

“It’s a real phenomenon. It’s something you can’t do at other times of the year,” he insisted.

Scientists tend to put this “phenomenon” in the category of old wives’ tales. Prescott’s wife, however, insists that her husband “has both oars in the water.”

“I challenge anyone to refute this,” Prescott said. “I challenge anyone three months from now to duplicate what I did today.”

To duplicate it will require a research grant totaling $13.26, or the cost of two dozen extra-large white eggs, two dozen extra-large brown eggs and two dozen jumbo white eggs.

It also will require an impartial observer because there are ways to cheat: like shaking the egg to break the yoke and concentrate more weight at the bottom; or cracking the egg slightly at the bottom to flatten it; or sticking wax to the bottom. Prescott swears he didn’t do any of that.

How serious is Prescott, really?

“I intend to make this a family tradition,” he said. “It’s to celebrate, to welcome in spring.”

To others less occupied with ritual, Tuesday must have seemed more like summer than spring. Inland temperatures soared--88 in Santa Ana, 87 in Anaheim, 85 in El Toro--falling just short of the 90-degree record two years ago for this date.

“Hot and muggy,” reported Paul Leighton at Caspers Wilderness Park east of San Juan Capistrano. “It feels like summer.” he said.