1. The Hottest Day Yet

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    July 29, 2015 by admin

    The temperature topped 90 degrees. Anyone who didn’t have to be out was home in the A/C. At the entrance to the park, all the pedicabs were clustered in the shade. I checked on the blighted chestnut tree; the leaves were browning badly, nor did I see any chestnuts forming, even on the upper branches.

    The arcade and terrace at Bethesda Fountain were cordoned off for the annual staff luncheon for the Central Park Conservancy. An Asian accordion player sat on the bench in the shade. According to John Boyd, her name was Whaley, or Wei Li, and she was his fiancé. “Don’t you have six kids?” I asked him.

    “Nine,” he said.

    “She looks like a young woman, maybe this is your chance for an even dozen.”

    “I never thought of that,” he said. “That just may be the excuse I was looking for.”

    At my spot beneath the maple, before I even had a chance to tune up, a Chinese man stopped with his family, dropped $2, and asked me for a Chinese song. I told him I didn’t know any, so he asked for “Santa Lucia.” I didn’t know that either, but that didn’t stop me from faking it.

    Next up was an Egyptian woman and her daughter. The young girl had no interest in a hula, but mom did. Despite her mom’s efforts, however, the daughter was adamant, so mom quit in the middle, thanked me with a dollar and walked off.

    A teenage boy gave me a buck, and a man walking by dug deep into his pocket for a handful of silver.

    My location on the path is on the way to the Boathouse restaurant, which, in addition to food, offers an outside water fountain and restrooms. Often people hurrying by give me a thumbs-up, but do not slow down. On 2 occasions today, middle-aged men acknowledged me in one direction, then, much relieved, gave me money in the other.

    A couple sat on the rock behind me, in the shade, posing for pictures of one another. After a while, I forgot all about them. A large group of pre-schoolers came by, including one little girl who cried inconsolably. They were from a summer camp sponsored by PS 175, and everyone wanted a lei. I ended up singing 6 verses of “The Hukilau Song,” so they could share leis until everyone had a turn. The crying girl hung back, clutching the hand of one of the counselors.

    At the end of the dance, with no money changing hands and none expected, the counselors herded the kids into a line in preparation for marching them to their next destination. That’s when a woman approached the crying girl, in an attempt, one presumes, to…well, I don’t know what she thought she could do, and neither did the lead counselor. He was a stout muscular man, with a full beard and sweet smile, which quickly disappeared when the woman intervened. He tried to warn her off, and before long, raised voices, unruly kids and a crying child soured the mood.

    I waited until the storm passed, then closed my set with “My Little Grass Shack.” The couple from the rock climbed down and headed east, in the opposite direction as the kids. The man put $2 in my case.

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  2. Fine, Great and Wonderful

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    July 24, 2015 by admin

    Another day of high temperatures and low humidity brought me back to Bethesda Fountain. An Italian man from the Veneto took video. After telling me what a fine singing voice I had, he walked off. A couple from Lucerne, Switzerland, dressed in biking clothes, broke into free style dance as I rocked out to “I Saw Stars.” They gave me $2, and pronounced me “great.”

    The international theme of the day continued with a preteen from Finland. She danced demurely and rewarded me with a dollar. An Indian family spanning 3 generations gathered around me. The grandkids, a boy of 6 or so, and a girl of 4, danced for a few bars, but the boy was more interested in the toy hula girl on the stone step behind me. “What do you think makes it move?” I asked.

    “The wind?”

    “No, sir,” I said, picking up the toy. “Check this out. Sunlight is collected by this little solar panel, which sends a small electrical charge through this wire coil.” I pulled the hula girl off her base to show him the spool of copper inside. Then I showed him the magnet attached to a pendulum that moved over the coil; the other end of the pendulum was hinged to the hula girl’s arms, so, when it swung, her arms moved from side to side. Reassembling her, I turned to his mom. “There you have it, the principle of electromagnetism in a 25-cent toy.” Mom gave me a dollar; grandma gave me two.

    A group of Iowa high school girls decided to dance. None knew how to hula, so I gave a quick lesson. It required more explanation than usual because none had ever seen the ocean or been on a beach. Bright girls all, however, they went to “The Hukilau” in their imaginations, throwing their nets into the sea, and singing songs of love under the silvery moon. There was at least a fiver in it for me.

    A hipster and I locked eyes and exchanged smiles. Ten feet past me, he stopped, found a dollar in his pocket and came back to give it to me. A young boy, sitting with his parents on the bench in the shade, gave me a buck, but would not hula.

    As I packed up, two 20-somethings, who had been eating their lunch near the lake, each gave me a dollar. “Have you got time for a hula today?”

    “No,” one said, “we have to get back to work. I wish we could, you’re wonderful.”

    In addition to the $15.35 in my pocket, I went home with a “fine”, a “great”, and a “wonderful” to my credit, making it another most excellent day.

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  3. Oasis in the Park

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    July 23, 2015 by admin

    It was the first nice day in a week. The water plants in the fountain had bloomed, lotuses at water level in pinks and golds, red lilies towering over their sword-like leaves. Two teenagers from Cincinnati watched me set up. I sang “Making Love Ukulele Style,” a simple tune written by Dean Martin, and sung by Arthur Godfrey. Of course, they’d never heard of either man, or of Jerry Lewis. They never heard of Steve McQueen, or “The Cincinnati Kid.” Nor, apparently, had they ever heard of tipping the musician.

    A family from West Virginia was next. The kids were too embarrassed to hula, but not mom and dad. Another family walked by. These kids were very interested, but mom and dad kept walking. The elder daughter, however, split from the group and ran up to me with 2 quarters and a dime.

    “She’s from Hawaii,” a 20-something yelled to me, pointing out her friend.

    “Am not,” said the friend in a distinctly English accent. “I just lived there for a few months.” With a little coaxing, she started dancing to “The Hukilau Song,” all the while saying, “I don’t remember, I don’t remember.” Nevertheless, she danced to the end and her friend rewarded me with $2.

    Small change here and there, tossed in by appreciative passers-by, weighted down the singles so they wouldn’t fly off in the cool breeze from the lake.

    Last year I added “Down among the Sheltering Palms” to my repertoire, but when I tried to play it this year, it had flown from my head. Having boned up on the chords before I left the house in the morning, I played it now. A Saudi man and his veiled wife, a few steps behind, planted himself in front of me and started taking pictures. “Do you know this song?”

    “I do,” he said, singing with me. At the final chord, he dug out a dollar and handed it to me. It amused me to imagine the caravan at the oasis; the camel-driver breaks out his uke and strums a song of love: Oh, honey, wait for me.

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