Mermaid Tales: Mug Shot

Quite a few of you asked and now you shall receive -- and most likely you will regret asking.

For anyone new to Straight From Hel, I used to be a mermaid. I swam for three years at a place called Aquarena Springs. If you’ve heard of the resort, then you know mermaids were secondary stars to Ralph the Swimming Pig. I occasionally tell tales from those days.

Today is not so much a tale as it is a show and tell.

 You asked for pictures. I found a couple. Most of you wanted one of me in my tail, but, alas, I haven’t found one. I did find one of me sitting on the lily pad picnicking, but it’s pretty blurry since it was, of course, me underwater. I did, however, find postcards with me in it. This postcard features five swimmers standing on the volcano. It’s difficult to tell, but the guy on top of the volcano is blowing the conch shell horn. Swimmers would also climb to that top position and dive into the water at the beginning of the show.

The volcano housed the two warming rooms (one for the guys and one for the girls). Between the two rooms was a hole cut in the volcano floor for swimmers to enter the water, sight unseen, and swim to the staging platform to await their cue to enter the show area. The warming rooms were kept very hot so swimmers could come out of the cold spring-fed waters and warm up quickly. I don’t remember ever being sick during my three years there, probably because of those warming rooms.

At water level, you’ll see two girls. Ronina is on the right and I’m standing on the left (I’m the taller one).

So, there you go. Me on the volcano.