1. Rosh Ha-Hula

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    September 15, 2015 by admin

    After a week away from the park, I returned at the change of season. The weather was in the mid-70’s with cool gusts of wind. The sky was cloudless. The cowboy was back near my spot at the fountain, so I continued to the maple, setting up where I could easily move into the sun.

    Shortly after I started my set, a family with 4 teen-aged girls walked by. Dad pulled out his wallet and gave a dollar to the eldest girl for me. She would not dance, nor would any of her sisters, whom I invited in turn.

    A 40-something man, walking twin terriers, waited across the path, eager to tell me that he was on his way to meet his friend, who had colluded with one of the portrait artists on a marriage proposal scheme. Having given the artist a picture beforehand, his friend would bring his girlfriend to the park to sit for the artist, whose final product would include, voila, a diamond ring. He rushed off so excited, he almost forgot to give me a dollar. After 10-15 minutes I saw him again, walking back the other way. I stopped what I was singing and switched to “The Hawaiian Wedding Song.”

    While singing “Fit as a Fiddle,” when I came to the lyric, “…how the church bells will be ringing/with a hey nonny-nonny and a hot cha-cha,” a young couple stopped in their tracks. It turned out the woman’s name was Nonny; there was laughter and handshakes all around, then off they walked.

    A woman in a head scarf seemed to like “My Baby Just Cares for Me.” She took a long video, then counted out 4 quarters. A woman with a screaming child in her arms walked by, just as I was deciding what to sing next. It was “Get Out and Get Under the Moon,” a cinch to make a child smile. Mom peeked over her shoulder at her happy daughter, smiled at me. All was well.

    A tall man dressed in his high holiday best took out his wallet and gave me a dollar. His wife, on his arm, beamed up at him approvingly. He had started the new year with a mitzvah.

    A couple of men and women, with 5-6 kids, were picnicking behind me, on the other side of the fence. They’d finished their lunch and some of the kids got up to run. One boy, about 10, found a break in the fence and was throwing his body against it until he could squeeze through.

    “You want to hula?”

    “Does it cost anything?”

    “Not a thing.”

    Soon his brothers and sisters were squeezing through the fence to hula too. I got them lei-ed and lined up, when the eldest sister, 15 or so, egged on by the adults, got up off the blanket and wriggled through the fence. She already knew how to hula, so I instructed all the others to follow her to the hukilau. At least 2 singles found their way into my case, along with an unknown quantity of change.

    Two preteens on scooters raced by, dismounted, and prevailed on the adult in charge to let them hula. They pushed and giggled their way through both verses of “The Hukilau Song.” Each gave me a dollar and hopped back on her scooter. “That was fun.”

    There was close to $13 in my case when a woman and her husband passed by, stopped, walked back and asked if mine was a tenor uke. She was a 1st grade teacher, living on the west side, who wanted an instrument to play in her class, so the kids could sing along. She thought the ukulele might be the answer. I assured her, while her husband put a dollar in my case and pulled her away, it surely was.

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  2. So Hot

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    September 10, 2015 by admin

    The first day of school found me back in the park. Yesterday was a record high 97; today was better, but still topped 90. The fountain hosted the cowboy, naturally enough in the western reaches near water. Meta sat on a bench on the eastern edges, where there still was shade. She didn’t look happy. “I asked him very nicely to turn it down,” she said with a sweet smile, then, with a wide-eyed frown, “and he got very aggressive. Besides, there’s no one here, and it’s sooo hot.”

    To the south, someone had forgotten to water the hydrangea, whose leaves had turned russet, and drooped like the arms of an exhausted boxer. What once were flowers were now only skinny sticks, with a petal here and there as a reminder of what once was.

    The maple provided some relief from the heat, and every now and then a cool breeze would waft over the water, or, so it seemed, rise up from the tunnel under the roadway nearby. Two Belgian girls from Antwerp rode up on their bikes. One of them gave me 57 cents. She could speak English, occasionally translating into Dutch for her friend. She was surprised that an American took any interest in her country.

    A pair of Central Park Conservancy volunteers headed my way. “Remember me?” one said.

    I looked at the name tag around her neck. “Hi, Joan, good to see you.”

    She explained to her friend, Carol, that she had heard me singing the verse of “Did You Ever See a Dream Walking,” and it had set off memories of a musicale she had performed in as a child, decades before. As she explained, I did indeed remember her; we had sung the song together at the fountain, probably when I first learned it years ago. Today, we sang it again. “Have a good day,” she said, walking off.

    Meta walked by with her harp. She looked into my case. “You don’t even have carfare.”

    A young woman walked by and gave me a dollar. She politely declined to dance. Later on, a young man did the same. When I packed up, at the reduced senior rate, I had one way carfare, with a buck and a quarter to spare.

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  3. There Goes the Summer

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    September 5, 2015 by admin

    I saw my first acorn today. Fuzzy finger-long magnolia buds fatten in the sun; a pink tissue of flower petals was visible in a few of them. The chestnut tree is mostly black.

    As I got to the fountain, Meta was packing up. She told me she’d been there since 9 o’clock, and all had been glorious until the cowboy set up across the way. “He’s so loud,” she said.

    “Not too loud for me. As long as I can’t hear him when I play,” I said, “I figure I’m maintaining busker etiquette.”

    “That’s my rule too,” Meta said. “I guess you play louder than me, because I can hear him.”

    I set up exactly where I’d been Tuesday. A family of Brazilians slowed as they passed me. Dad was interested in my instrument. “Ukulele?” I nodded. He wasn’t inclined to stop, but when first I engaged him over the uke, then his daughter over a hula, they became my first customers of the day.

    A Bolivian man was roaming the fountain area with his 2 daughters. Having seen the Brazilian girl dance, the Bolivian girls thought they’d like to try.

    Keeping with the international theme, a French girl, in denim shorts and a loose fitting tee shirt, danced free style, with lots of arm-waving, head-banging, and hip-shaking energy. She pranced over a lot of real estate during 2 verses of “The Hukilau Song,” ending up where she started, next to me. She gave me back my lei, kissed both cheeks and walked away.

    A man and boy from Toronto liked the music. Neither wanted to dance, but were happy to give me a dollar. All the Americans, it appeared, had already left town for the Labor Day weekend.

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