1. The Gifts of October

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    October 21, 2015 by admin

    These 70 degree October afternoons are a gift. Autumn is evident everywhere. Dead leaves blow over the lawns, acorns are ankle deep along the sides of the path, dog roses send their last, desperate vermilion buds into the air, in defiance of frost. Once again, adapting to the cowboy’s schedule, I arrived at the fountain near his quitting time.

    Andrew, a 20-something I’ve seen around from time to time, got there with his guitar before me. He and I came to an agreement. When the cowboy left, Andrew would move to the west side of the fountain and I would take center stage. So it was I spent the next 15-20 minutes under the maple, warming up my voice on “My Baby Just Cares for Me” and “Down Among the Sheltering Palms.” When I returned to the fountain, the cowboy was just packing up. Andrew looked at him over his shoulder. “Right on time,” he said.

    A photographer set up his tripod to take pictures of the Angel of the Waters, with pigeons perched on her head and wings. Two young men were hanging around, eyeing my uke. When I stopped to talk, one asked if it was a tenor, and could he try it. The conversation was about ukes; his buddy, bored, wandered over to the photographer, asking about lens. When I finally got my uke back, the young men wandered off together. Moments later, the photographer folded up his tripod, slipped his camera into its bag and hoisted it onto his shoulder. As he walked past, he put $2 into my case.

    “Thanks a lot,” I said.

    “You deserve it.”

    A tall, skinny Asian boy had been sitting with his friend across from me on the bench. I watched him walk toward me, drop 4 quarters into my case, and walk back. He and his friend continued to listen for another few minutes, before, waving “Aloha,” they disappeared into the crowd.

    A 30-something woman gave me a dollar, but would not hula.

    A small boy, with a dollar in his hand, started toward me, but when our eyes met he ran away, back to his mom. I took a few steps to the side and, without making eye contact, observed him, with mom’s encouragement, as he inched toward me again. When he was close, I turned to give him a smile. He dropped the money and ran back to his laughing mom again.

    A gay couple walked past me to the lake. Moments later, they walked back, each pulling a dollar from his pocket to give me. “You’re the best,” one said to me. “The best ever,” said the other.

    My set over, I counted out $7 and packed up my gear. As I got to my feet, I turned my face to the sun, soaking in its warmth, and hoping these gifts would never end.

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  2. Voila, She Danced

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    October 17, 2015 by admin

    When the sun was obscured by the dark, rain-heavy cumulus clouds, it was really cold. The button man sat under the dogwood tree with his hoodie pulled up around his ears. The brisk wind made it worse. The chestnut tree looked terminal, and the 4 little winter-burned rhododendron had been dug up; the brown circles of earth remaining were filling up with dead leaves.

    When I got to center stage the wind had driven away the heavy clouds and the sun felt hot on my arms and face. As I set up, a monarch butterfly fluttered toward the lake. First it would rest on the warm bricks, wings slowly rippling up and down, like an idling engine. People approached close enough to take pictures. Then it burst into the air, no more than a few feet high, and continued its erratic journey. At this rate, Mexico seemed a stretch.

    A pair of girls from Alabama gave me a dollar and danced the day’s first hula. One from a trio of Chinese girls danced the second, returning to her friends afterward to view the pictures they’d taken. They took more pictures of a little girl who did the next hula, and saw her mom put something in my case, then they walked away.

    An Asian 20-something man, who had been watching from the bench, came over with $2. And I got another $2, from a half dozen Canadian girls from Alberta, “above Montana,” one told me.

    The crowds kept coming, most in heavy cloths, many in hats and gloves. Yet in the sun it was glorious. As I sang, I lost track of who gave me what. People came up from the benches, little kids, old men. Someone had tossed in a fiver. One guy was a Finn. A 50-something man sauntered over and shook my hand, saying, “I like your enthusiasm.”

    A 2-year old girl, Lola, sat cross-legged on the brick, elbows on knees, chin in hands, eye-level with my solar powered toy hula dancer. She was mesmerized. “She can’t hurt it,” I told a concerned-looking mom. Putting my uke aside, I asked Lola to sit next to me, while I took the toy apart and showed her the copper wire coil inside, and the magnet attached to a pendulum connected to the hula dancer’s arms. I left out details of Maxwell’s equations. Reassembling it, voila, the hula dancer danced, and so did Lola.

    “Yay,” we both shouted at the end of the song. Her mom gave me back the lei and buckled Lola into her stroller, whereupon they strolled away. Listeners on the north side gave me $1. Listeners on the south side gave me 2. At the end of my set, I had $19.50. With Lola on her shoulders, Lola’s mom came back with something for me. I love it when I break 20.

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  3. Center Stage

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    October 16, 2015 by admin

    Getting another late start, I decided to sit quietly on a bench and wait for the cowboy to go home. With the days remaining in the season growing ever fewer, I wanted my time at center stage and, by God, I would have it. Chatting with some tourists sitting near me, I learned that the Boyd family singers were wonderful, and that the cowboy played all their favorite songs. Go figure.

    I opened with “Making Love Ukulele Style.” As I played, I detected a twang in my low-G string, a wire wrapped item that hasn’t been changed all year. Experience tells me this string will soon snap. Upon examination, I can’t find any fraying, which usually begins directly over one of the frets. My challenge now is to finish the season, so I can change all the strings at once in January.

    A young man stopped in front of me to take a picture. Unlike practically every photographer who’s pointed a camera, cellphone or iPad at me, this one coughed up a buck.

    “Have you got time for a hula today?” Three older women talked it over, and one of them, Diane, started shaking her hips. “Do you know any birthday songs?” It was Diane’s 80th birthday. I put a lei around her neck and sang “Happy Birthday” while one of them shot video. “What about that hula?” the videographer called out. Diane was game and did a slow, yet stylish, hula. The women were from Dallas, where, I reminisced, I had gone ice skating at the indoor rink at the Galleria shopping center when the outside temp was 107. When they left, with shouts of Aloha echoing through the fountain, I found a crisp fiver in my case.

    Two blond teenagers were encouraged by their mom to dance. During the intro to “The Hukilau Song,” brother and sister danced in unison, but with the start of the verse, sister went free-style, literally dancing circles around her brother. A laughing mom handed me $3.

    A 30-something woman all in black walked slowly past me, and without breaking stride tossed 2 quarters in my case. By the time I got to the end of a breath-line in my song, it was too late to ask her to dance. A 40-something man gave me a dollar, saying, “Keep on playing, man.”

    “Do you like ukulele music?”

    “Not particularly, but I like what you’re doing.”

    It was another great day for wedding photos. I counted 6 brides in my 90 minutes at the fountain. As is my wont, I broke into “The Hawaiian Wedding Song” every time a bride showed up. Rarely am I rewarded; most of the time the wedding couple doesn’t have a clue what I’m singing. Today, however, a photographer, 1 of 4 that were assembled to take pictures of a particularly large wedding party, gave me a dollar, bringing the day’s total to a respectable $11.50.

    Packing up, Kate, who plays the viola for John Boyd, came by to ask if her friend on the alto sax, who had set up 180 degrees from me, with taped accompaniment, was interfering with me. “Not anymore,” I said, “I’m done for the day.” Fact is, I’d heard him between numbers, but not at all while playing, my measure of when buskers are too close together. “But thanks for your concern,” I added. “See you tomorrow.”

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