Mermaids of Montana

I've only been to Montana once, and that was 50 years ago. I remember little about it, other than that Yellowstone was spectacularly beautiful, and that on our way there, my friend Joyce and I drove past a motel called something like the Flamingo or the Desert Palms or the Ocean Breeze. Which we got a big kick out of, because a motel in Montana should be called the Geyser, or the Windy Plains, or the Bison View, or the Copper Mine. 

But now that I've had 50 years to reflect on things, my thinking has changed. 

Why the hell wouldn't folks in Montana want have a motel called the Desert Palms?

I did try to search for such a hotel/motel, and the closest I came was a Flamingo Motel in Coeur D'Alene, which is in Idaho. And I suspect there are no more flamingos in Idaho than there are in Montana. (As a homie, I would like to note that the plastic yard flamingo was invented in Massachusetts.)

But Montana has something much, much better than a Flamingo Motel. And that's the Sip N' Dip Lounge at the O'Haire Motor Inn in Great Falls, Montana, which features live mermaids who perform regularly. And mermaids of no more native to Montana than flamingos are.

Back in 1996, the O’Haire Motor Inn was struggling. [Sandra] Johnson-Thares and her mother needed an idea to turn things around, so one day that winter, they hunkered down to brainstorm in a booth at their Sip N’ Dip cocktail lounge. The underground bar already shared a glass wall with the swimming pool, they reasoned. What if inside the pool — at this point, the two might have been a couple of drinks in — they had real mermaids, tails and all? It was funny. That’s something people wouldn’t expect some 600 miles from the nearest ocean.

“The more we drank,” Johnson-Thares said, “the funnier the vision of mermaids became.” (Source: Boston Globe)

The first mermaids must have looked pretty ragtag, even if someone was wearing beer goggles. The mermaid tails were made out of green tablecloths, held together with duct tape.

But over the years, the look improved. The costumes have gotten swanked up, and now include "sequins, scales, lace, and layering." The family cadged some seaweed from a defunct ride at Disneyland, which made the pool look more, ahem, authentic.

And the mermaid act has been good for business.

Johnson-Thares gets up to 100 mermaid-related calls a week, and there are regular performances throughout the week, and throughout the year. 

Johnson-Thares has eight mermaids and one merman on staff. Most prefer to remain anonymous, worried about so-called “merverts” — which is why a bouncer walks the mermaids to their cars at night — as well as what the employers at their day jobs would think. Recently, the United States Postal Service discovered one of its employees swam at the Sip N’ Dip and demanded she stop, calling it a violation of its standards of conduct. Other merpeople work at PetSmart, as a college admissions counselor, and — tonight’s mermaid, Marvel — as a social media consultant.

Merverts was a new one on me. As you might infer from the name, they're folks with a sexual fetish involving mythical aquatic creatures.

Let's not go there. But the Sip N' Dip lounge might be a trip. 

In the Sip N’ Dip lounge tonight, a puffer-fish chandelier and fishing nets dangled from a thatched bamboo ceiling. At the piano, Joel Corda, an opera-trained middle school teacher, crooned “Unchained Melody.” There was blue and orange neon, tiki sculptures, drinks of an unnatural turquoise color, and, as promised, a mermaid turning graceful underwater flips behind the glass.

Montana is not on the bucket list I don't have to begin with. But never say never, and if a trip to Montana presented itself, I wouldn't say 'no.' And the Sip N' Dip sounds like a hoot. (Boo to the prissy prude at the U.S. Postal Services who wouldn't allow an employ to moonlight as a mermaid.)

Fortunately, most Montanan employers seem more woke:

The lone merman — an optometrist by day — performs on Sunday as part of a brunch special because, as Johnson-Thares puts it, “it’s important that children know that men can be mermaids too.”

If I do find myself in Great Falls, the Sip N' Dip Lounge at the O'Haire Motor Inn is def on my itinerary. Maybe I'll stay at the Flamingo in Coeur D'Alene. It's only a five and change hours drive away, and things move fast out in the West, especially if you get yourself a non-mermaid tail wind.