AILSA CHANG, HOST:
OK. A lot of little girls dream about being a mermaid. I mean, I still do. And for a lucky few, living that dream does become real. At Weeki Wachee Springs State Park in Florida - that's about an hour north of Tampa - young women have been performing shows as mermaids since the 1940s. Recently, a group of women who performed back in the 1960s relived their aquatic days. Sky Lebron from member station WUSF was there and has this audio postcard.
SKY LEBRON, BYLINE: Arlene Brooks and Mary Jo McCoy are becoming mermaids again. They're 75 and 76 years old. It's a bit tougher for Brooks to shimmy into her costume these days.
How hard is it to put on the tail?
ARLENE BROOKS: I've got a messed-up knee, got messed-up stomach, got messed-up arm. It's hard.
(LAUGHTER)
BROOKS: OK, now come over here to the ladder.
MARY JO MCCOY: Blah (ph).
(LAUGHTER)
BROOKS: Come on, now.
LEBRON: But when Brooks and McCoy get back in the water...
MCCOY: It's like you never left. It's magical. It feels like you're at home again.
BROOKS: There's a feel to it. There's a lightness. And when you're - at my age and at 17, there's really no comparison. But when I get back in that water, it's all there, every last bit of it. I'm weightless. I'm young. I'm pretty. I'm having a good time.
(LAUGHTER)
LEBRON: That good time was thanks to a Wish Of A Lifetime program from the AARP, which sponsored five former Weeki Wachee mermaids between 75 and 79 years old to see if they still had the chops.
Was it easy to get back into the routine? Have you guys done older routines that you did before? Like, what's that all been like?
BROOKS: No routines. We're just trying to see if we remember how to get down, how to hold our breath.
LEBRON: How's it been working so far?
BROOKS: So-so.
(LAUGHTER)
LEBRON: It's harder than you might think. They're swimming in a spring, not a pool, with a current they're fighting the entire time.
Has there been anything that you've carried through the rest of your lives because of this job and because of this experience?
MCCOY: I got mermaids all over my house. My husband said if I brought another mermaid home, he was going to kill me.
(LAUGHTER)
LEBRON: Does that drive to keep on swimming ever stick with you? You ever just want to jump in a lake and be a mermaid again?
BROOKS: I live in Arcadia, Florida, and occasionally I throw my tail on when I'm feeling especially crazy, and I swim around the pool. And everybody comes out and takes a look and says, oh, yeah, Arlene's a mermaid. I am.
LEBRON: And Brooks told me, once a mermaid, always a mermaid. And after meeting these women, I'm convinced it's true.
For NPR News, I'm Sky Lebron in Weeki Wachee, Florida.
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