1. Escaping Insult

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    August 24, 2015 by admin

    Despite the stormy forecast, the weather remained fine, so I ventured out for the third day in a row. It was much cooler than earlier in the week, and the humidity was tolerable. A breeze blew in off the lake. Wispy mares’ tail clouds floated high in a bleached blue sky. The mood in the park was slow, sedate; bicycle riders stopped at red lights.

    Two young siblings from Timmins, Ontario, Canada, stopped to dance despite their dad’s saying “no, no, no,” when I asked if they had time for a hula. Mom took video, then put $2 in my case.

    For another hour, no one paid any attention to me. Near closing time, an overweight boy in wire-rimmed glasses peeled away from his friends and dropped 16 cents. “Thanks, kid.”

    I felt myself circling the drain all week, yet every day so far I managed to escape the insult of a zero-dollar day. Next week, like most New Yorkers, I’m leaving town. Perhaps September will see the return of the free-spending ukulele lovers. Until then, “Aloha.”

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  2. The Doldrums Continue

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    August 21, 2015 by admin

    There is new growth on the rhodies, especially those that had suffered the worst winter-burn. In the sun, the leaf clusters looked like yellow blossoms. From his encampment up on Cherry Hill, a homeless man shouted “Aloha.” The park seemed a bit more crowded, but not much.

    Within the first few minutes after setting up under the maple, I tried to cajole 3 sisters from South Jersey to do a hula. It was the middle child’s 12th birthday. “You’ll never get a 12-year-old to do that,” her mom told me. Which, as it turned out, was all mom had to say for the dodecanerian to put down her backpack and grab the lei from my hand. “I can’t believe it,” mom said, putting 2 singles in my case. “You got her to smile.”

    Across the path, a woman of indeterminate age fiddled with her camera. She put me in focus, then started walking toward me until the lens was up in my face. She snapped the picture and backed away. She pulled a dollar out of a zippered pocket in her vest, put it back and came up with 48 cents.

    It was another summer day, populated by hula-dancing walk-aways, thumbs up passers-by, Hassidim in rowboats, and teen-aged boys who fake-sneeze “you suck” for their friends’ amusement. A quartet of unaccompanied women in hijab walked by. “Have you got time for a hula today?”

    “No, thanks, we’re good.”

    A young teen girl marched up to me with a smile on her face and a dollar in her hand. She too had no time to hula. I watched as she continued up the path. The candy man was waiting for her; he grabbed her hand and started his spiel. She produced a dollar for him too.

    He grabbed other hands, most of which were quickly withdrawn. As they passed by me, the people patted their pockets or clutched their purses. It was time to go home.

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  3. Mid-Summer Doldrums

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    August 20, 2015 by admin

    I felt relieved when I saw the cowboy, music stand in front of him, amp behind, all dressed up in his leather Stetson, jeans and boots. He was a 60-something black man with a neatly-trimmed gray beard. When he played, he rocked back and forth on stiff bow-legs. I had started out today eager for center stage, but, by the time I’d walked to Bethesda Fountain, sweat was running down my back; the heat and humidity were suffocating.

    Under the merciful shade of the maple, with a cool breeze from time to time lifting off the lake, I raised my voice in Aloha. The park was seriously devoid of people, as if the weatherman had warned everyone to stay indoors. Far fewer rowboats floated on the water. I looked to the east, and not a soul came from the boathouse, or emerged from the tunnel under the roadway. I looked to the west, and no one sat on the rock behind me or the bench up the hill, no one crested the path from the fountain. Even the birds that swoop from the high branches, from maple to mulberry, seemed to have taken the afternoon off.

    A half hour later, a 50-something photographer reached into his pocket and dumped 76 cents in my case. The coins lay there, all alone, for a good while longer. A bike rider, who’d ridden past me already, came back in the other direction. “Sounds good,” he said, as he whizzed by.

    A young man found 19 cents for me.

    A girl and her mother rested against the fence in the shade near me. The girl was dressed all in white for a sweet sixteen. “Have you got time for a hula today?” She put her matching high-heeled shoes back on and walked toward me for her lei. Mom took pictures. The girl was self-conscious and embarrassed. After a single verse of “The Hukilau Song,” I collected the lei and they walked on.

    A little girl let go of her father’s hand and put more change in my case. The first and only folding money of the day came a few moments later. Another little girl had stopped across the way and was eyeing me uncertainly. I flashed my best aloha smile. She smiled back, which smile, a moment later, transformed into a tightly folded single.

    When a day camp of 6 and 7 year olds stopped to hula, only 2 kids danced. The teen-aged counsellors tried to show them how to hula, but the kids stiffly waved their arms in the air until the second verse, when I speeded it up and encouraged free-style. “Thank you,” I said at the end of the dance. “Mahalo.” One of the kids who did not dance put some pennies in my case.

    I always close my set with “My Little Grass Shack,” in which there is a lyric in Hawaiian: “Komo mai no kâua i ka hale welakahao.” I was singing those words when I saw what looked to me like native Hawaiians coming down the path. They giggled to each other as they passed.

    “How’d I do?” I asked.

    “Not even close,” one answered.

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