So last time I had us in the lovely city of San Marcos. We had gone there to see the Mermaid Parade. And, I had just explained why Mermaids are a big deal for the city.
We arrived on Friday and had lunch, and a walk around downtown. We found that San Marcos has statues of Mermaids at several places throughout the community -- sort of like the way that Wimberley has boot statues everywhere, and Hutto has concrete Hippos.
And we had seen the statue of a mermaid with Ralph, the wonderful diving pig.
Anyway, it was getting on, so we headed off to the hotel and checked in. The desk clerk was a very nice young woman who made conversation. Were we just traveling though? she asked. Well, no, we responded. We were there to see the parade.
About the photos: First, a shot of the street just prior to the parade. It’s not a great photo, but the best I could do at the time.
This charmed her, I think. If we had been there with children or grand-children in tow, that would have been understandable. But for a couple of middle-aged (okay, older than middle-aged) folks to come to town to see the parade ...all by ourselves...well, that was different and a little refreshing.
We added that we were sort of on a scouting mission because we had grand-kids who we might bring to the parade in future. She nodded. She said, Why, yes, and, you know? She hadn’t been to the parade in years. Not since her own children had grown up. Tomorrow was her day off. Maybe she’d half to go see it herself. Yes, she decided, she would have to. We had inspired her.
We went to our room and rested a bit. Then, we went to a grocery store, picked up our usual bread and cheese, and came back to the hotel for a light dinner.
The next morning we were up and ready at an early hour. We caught a quick breakfast at the hotel and headed off for downtown...
...which was already crowded. It seemed like all of San Marcos and half of Austin was present. But, we got lucky and found a parking lot. We collected Martha’s walker and followed the passing crowd to a point along one of the main streets. We’d seen the parade route on a map, so we sort of knew where to go to get a decent vantage point.
Martha sat on her walker and I stood beside her. The crowd grew larger and larger. I spent some time looking at the people around us. The crowd was of all sorts and shapes and sizes of people. It was definitely diverse to say the least.
But I think I can say without fear of contradiction that the majority of the people I saw were young families with younger children--say, between toddlerhood and the upper ranges of elementary school. Many, many of the girls...and not a few of the grown women...were dressed in mermaid costumes. I saw a lot of Disney Ariels that day.
Which presented an interesting problem, I realized. The Mermaid parade really is a girl’s (and woman’s) event. A mermaid is, by definition, female. But the girls had brothers in that crowd. And they really couldn’t participate, wholly, in the activity.
In the long run, that can’t last. San Marcos, and its parade, have to find a way to be a bit more inclusive in this age of gender equity.
Second, a photo of Martha at the Roaring Fork, a restaurant in Austin at which we had lunch a while back. The food was okay, but the real charm was the fact that (for once) we weren’t the oldest people in the place. That’s what Austin is like.
In fact, I think I may have seen the beginnings of the way that could happen. Most of the boys in the crowd were not in costume. They were just in street clothes. But, a few of them wore Aquaman costumes. You know who I mean? The cartoon character.(2) And so the crowd included a few boys in plastic armor and carrying wickedly barbed (but harmless) plastic tridents.
I wonder if that isn’t the way that the event will incorporate boys -- not as exactly as mermen, but as King Triton, the son of Poseidon, marine but masculine, the (tough) guy with gills...the red-blooded, two-fisted, All-American male...with fins.(3)
Well, we’ll see...
Anyway, we waited...and we waited...and we waited. It kept getting hotter, and hotter, and hotter. In fact, I was beginning to wonder if we wouldn’t have to throw in the towel and leave...before we quietly expired in a sticky pool of our sweat...
When...
Ah ha! There in the distance we heard...the sound of sirens...
And a samba.
More to come.
Footnotes:
1. I’ve written about the town of Hutto, Texas before. But, basically, the town’s mascot is the hippopotamus. Why? There’s a story (probably a tall-tale) that in 1915 a hippo escaped from a circus visiting the town and blocked the near-by train tracks. Supposedly, this caused the resident depot agent to desperately telegraph local stations, “Stop trains! Hippo loose in Hutto.” Probably not true, but it’s a great story.
Here’s a Hutto city page on the subject: https://www.huttotx.gov/481/Hutto-Hippos
2. In particular, I’m thinking of the more recent incarnations of the character. The earliest Aquaman was a clean-cut straight-arrow. By 2020, however, he was very much a muscled-up environmentalist with an attitude. Think Jason Momoa playing the role in Justice League (2017).
Aquaman has his own Wikipedia page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaman#In_other_media
And here’s a Jason Momoa clip from Justice League: https://youtu.be/uJDn5dgVVpM?si=a-0dro4ejFiAFiyf. Yeah, it isn’t great theater. But, you know what? As popular culture, it works.
3. Mermen do exist in mythology. Triton himself is, technically, one such. But, let’s face it, they rarely appear in popular culture. Which is why, I think, they won’t be a big part of the Mermaid Parade. But, if you’re interested in them, they do have their own Wikipedia entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merman
Copyright©2024 Michael Jay Tucker
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