Interview with
Moylen Owens
August 15, 2006
By Joyce McBride
Show Low Historical Museum
Moylen Owens: You know what mermaids are, don't you?
Joyce McBride: What, mermaids?
MO: There used to mermaids down here. I don't know whether I should tell you that story or not. Maybe I should tell it to record it.
JM: (Laughs) Sounds like a good one.
MO: It was when we were in high school. Right down a little further north here, the canyon is broken away from itself? And up on top, then you go down like in another canyon. And it's rugged, rugged. And we were down. This was early in the spring. The boys hadn't even thought of going swimming yet. We were in high school. And we went down in that place looking for artifacts or whatever, and we came out the other end. And did we get a shock! There all these mermaids were! Out on the sandbar, some were in the water and some were on the sandbar and some, and when they looked up they saw us about the same time we saw them. These mermaids had clothes, and their clothes were hung on these walnuts trees right between us and them. Some of the girls, I mean, some of the mermaids were more interested in getting to their clothes so we wouldn't get to them first. And so they come running right towards us to get their clothes. Others tried to bury themselves in the sand, others jumped into the water. There was quite a skirmish there and we were so shocked we didn't know what to do. (Laughs) I guess we turned back into the canyon.
JM: How old were you then?
MO: We were in high school
JM: Oh! In high school!
MO: And these were the high school girls.
JM: And so you spent the rest of your days wishing you that could recreate that scene!
MO: Man! It was such a shock you know! If we'd planned on it and sneaked down in there we'd known what we were up against, but here we came out of that broken away place in the canyon and right into the open little sandbar there and the nice little swimming pool. And there were those girls! It was early in the spring!
JM: They probably thought that they were safe.
MO: Well, we had. They rode with us on the school bus to Snowflake in those days. So I don't know whether we said any more about it or not.
JM: But you knew who they were!
MO: They knew who we were and we knew who they were! (Laughs) And so that's our story
JM: Your little secret!
