Okay, when I left off, I had just finished talking about Aquarena Springs, the water-themed resort and amusement park in San Marcos, Texas. I ought to say something, now, about just how big a deal it was. People came to see it from all over the world. According to one site I’ve seen, for many years it was the second most visited tourist attraction -- after the Alamo -- in all of Texas.(1)
And I’ve met long-time Texans who visited it as children. They’ve told me that it was an amazing place, at least in their memory. They might have been driving from one city in the state to another...say, Houston to Dallas...and after hours and hours of total tedium (much of Texas is, alas, flat and uneventful, particularly if you’re six years old, and trapped in a car)...there! There would be Aquarena Springs! An oasis! A refuge! A place of excitement, and relief, and fun...and mermaids...
Plus...a diving pig.
Yes, I’m finally going to get around to explaining Ralph.
About the photos: First, an AI-generated mer-pig. I thought it would be fun and cute. I was wrong. I’m big enough to admit that. Just the sort of guy I am.
It turns out that among the attractions of the park was a trained pig...Ralph...and Ralph would join the cavorting mermaids as part of the shows. Apparently, he would leap gleefully into the water...a “Swine Dive”...and then swim about joyously, to finally reappear on the land, a mer-pig among the mermaids. (2)
I’ve read it was actually a series of pigs....all named, officially, “Ralph” ...over the years. As one Ralph aged and retired, another...Dr. Who fashion...would appear to take his place. A dark and twisted part of me wonders what happened to the retired Ralphs. Did they get put out to pasture to spend their twilight years in peace and serenity? Maybe with an occasional dip in the public pool for old times’ sake? Or...or...well, under certain circumstances, could a ham sandwich be considered sea-food? Asking for a friend.
Anyway...there was also a submarine clown, “Glurpo,” whose act included doing magic tricks and smoking underwater. And, or so I’m led to believe, somewhere along the line, a least a few mermen joined the mermaids...maybe in a nod to aquatic gender equity.(3)
Apparently, Aquarena Springs had a good run. Begun in the 1950s, it lasted some forty years, all the way to 1994. But, after that, it began to decline. I’m not sure why. I’m guessing its appeal diminished in an age of newer, more modern attractions. Whatever the cause, the tides turned against Aquarena. (4)
Yet...do not weep for me, Submarinia! Aquarena Springs would have a glorious afterlife. In fact, two of them.
You remember I said that San Marcos was the home of Texas State University? Well, the University bought the property, and converted it into a freshwater research facility, the “Meadows Center for Water and the Environment.” At it, the school’s faculty, staff, and students do important work in the fields of water purity and environmental preservation--something that is really, Really, REALLY important in an age of drought, global worming, and pollution. The next time you walk by a peaceful brook, or go trout fishing on a lovely afternoon, you may have the Meadows scholars to thank for it. (5)
And you can still tour the place. Visitors can walk the grounds, see the old hotel dating from the 1920s, and, most importantly, tour Spring Lake in the very same glass bottom boats that A.B. Rogers introduced all those years ago. They are still there, carefully preserved, and really rather beautiful.
Martha and I took just such a tour before we left town. I’ll get to that in due time.
But I said that Aquarena Springs had two afterlives. The first was the Meadows Center. The second...
...was the mermaid mindset. And the town of San Marcos remade...
...in the image of an inland Atlantis.
More to come.
Second, Martha having breakfast just outside The Rivery Cafe, one of our favorite coffee and pastry places here in town.
Footnotes:
1.”Aquarena Springs and Ralph the Swimming Pig: The Documentary of a Texas Treasure” http://www.aquarenaandralph.com/
2. See “Aquarena Springs and Ralph the Swimming Pig,” above, as well as “Remember Aquarena Springs in San Marcos with These Pictures from the Past,” by Athena Hessong, TexasHillcountry.com, December 1, 2017, Tony Maples Photography, https://texashillcountry.com/aquarena-springs-san-marcos-pictures/, and “Aquarena Springs – Sub Theater Belatedly Doomed,” Roadside America, Oct 17 2008, https://www.roadsideamerica.com/blog/aquarena-springs-sub-theater-doomed/
3. See all the resources listed, and particularly https://www.roadsideamerica.com/blog/aquarena-springs-sub-theater-doomed/
4. See https://www.roadsideamerica.com/blog/aquarena-springs-sub-theater-doomed/ and particularly “Meadows Center for Water and the Environment,” on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meadows_Center_for_Water_and_the_Environment
5. see the Wikipedia entry on the Meadows directly above.
About the photos: First, an AI-generated mer-pig. I thought it would be fun and cute. I was wrong. I’m big enough to admit that. Just the sort of guy I am.
Second, Martha having breakfast just outside The Rivery Cafe, one of our favorite coffee and pastry places here in town.
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