We loaded up a minivan’s worth of nieces this past Saturday and trucked it up to Weekie Wacheee to hang out with the mermaids. Much to my delight, it was “Mermaids of Yesteryear” weekend, so we were treated to an extra special matinee show of mermaids who swam the springs back in the 1940s and up through the decades of the last century(!) – the youngest of the bunch hung up her tail (temporarily) in the late 1970s.

The three coolest parts about the show were these: (1) one of the mermaids reminisced about the day she swam for Elvis back in the 1950s and she still blushed when she talked about how dreamy he was as a soft-spoken 22-year-old. She is 70, by the way. (2) the turtles who live in the spring seemed to be totally into the music because whenever the mermaids “danced,” turtles splashed down into the lagoon and merrily dove and dipped and paddled with the mermaids who were forced to give them gentle nudges and send them back the opposite direction when the little guys interfered with their choreography. (3) The senior citizen mermaids were vivacious and sure of themselves and this made their performances more enjoyable than that of the firm, nubile 20-something cast of “The Little Mermaid” whom we saw earlier in the day.