1. Beating the Rain

    0

    September 29, 2016 by admin

    In spite of the threat of rain, I made my way to the park. Chilly gusts of wind drove fat black clouds across the sky. The thin crowds were swaddled in sweaters and jackets. Across from the plaque of peace-loving countries, a lone wood anemone, covered in tight buds, displayed a single flower. The plant shot new branches more than a foot long from the lower leaf clusters. The flower was made of 7 white overlapping petals around a yellow center of pollen bearing anthers, with thread-like filaments emanating from a green pea-sized ovule.

    The cowboy had been joined by another guitarist and a young man, who shook out a beat with what appeared to be a coffee can full of pebbles or beans.

    Under the maple, where I’ve played only infrequently this year, I prepared to sing to the birds. They flew in and out of the English Mulberry tree, pecking at the small yellow berries. In both directions, the path was empty.

    A young girl of 6 or 7 named Preston was delighted to dance. Somewhere she had learned to hula. She swayed from side to side and fluttered her arms, while her proud parents looked on. Two Australian teenagers went to the hukilau next. As controlled and dignified as Preston had been, that’s how wild these girls were.

    A dark-haired toddler stared at me suspiciously. “Would you like to dance the hula?”

    His parents were encouraging, so I slipped a lei-crown on his head, but he shook it off. “That’s ok,” I told him, “we don’t need that.”

    He didn’t know what to do, so I bent my knees; he bent his. I rocked from side to side; he rocked too. There was only so much I could do while strumming the uke, but every movement of mine got a response. By the end of the song, his parents and I agreed that a hula had been committed here today.

    My last dollar arrived at the end of long line of hula dancers. A family of 6, in single file, had heard my music from the crest of the hill. First one, then another of the teenage children, skipped and swirled, followed by mom and the younger children. Dad brought up the rear with his wallet in his hand.

    At the end of my set a man and his wire-haired terrier stopped to chat. He remembered me, from conversations we’d had last year or the year before, as the guy who retired to play the ukulele in Central Park. His name was Neil, and he had set his retirement date at December 31. “After that,” he told me, “I’m coming out here to play the ukulele with you.”

    The gusts of wind had become a constant blow. The dark clouds were piling up fast in the northwest. I called it quits 15 minutes early, hoping to beat the rain.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags:

  2. Little Girls and Bikers

    0

    September 28, 2016 by admin

    It’s a beautiful day in New York. There are no longer big crowds in the park. Fewer than 10 people were at the Imagine Mosaic, where the guitarist sang “Let It Be.”

    From a distance, it appeared there were no nuts on the chestnut tree at all, but up close I spotted a few browning golf-ball sized nuts in the upper branches, and the ground was littered with shells. I found a whole nut, shiny brown, and crushed it under my foot. The meat was white and moist, good eating for squirrels.

    Sitting alone on a bench near the stairs down to the fountain, a man sat expressionless, unmoving like a statue. His head was wrapped in white gauze. Wearing a suit, sunglasses, no tie, his shirt out of his pants, legs crossed, he was a living work of art, although I was at a loss as to how to interpret him.

    The accordion player was in the arcade. No other buskers were around. I set up, tuned and started my set with only a handful of people to hear me. A 5-year-old girl looked me over suspiciously. “Would you like to dance the hula?”

    “She’s shy,” said her dad. I tried to lure her with a lei, made funny faces, sang funny lyrics, all of which drove her farther away.

    “Not going to happen,” I said to dad. He agreed, then dropped 55 cents into my case.

    Another dad and daughter, 2-3 years old, stopped to chat. I doubled the lei into a crown and put it on the little girl’s head. The only sign of a hula was the occasional bend of the knee, or wave of the arm. Dad gave me buck and said, “Sorry, she won’t dance, but you sound great.”

    Three women rode into the plaza on bicycles and dismounted. One of them couldn’t take her eyes off me. “Have you got time for a hula today?” She turned her back and consulted with her friends, finally coming my way with a big smile and $3.

    Later, another set of bikers, stopped to listen. These were young men from Ireland. “From the west,” one of them told me. “Near Galway.” I told him that Mrs. Ukulele’s family hailed from Tipperary.

    My ukulele was falling farther and farther out of tune. I tightened the low-G string, strummed a few more chords, then twang, the string broke. I finished the song on 3 strings, then found a replacement string in my case. My old string maker, Hilo, had gone out of business; my strings now are from Aquila. I took off the broken string and replaced it as quickly as I could. New strings, once stretched, need some seasoning; right out of the package they go flat, so I had to tighten it up after – sometimes during – every song until I finished with “Little Grass Shack.”

    When I sat down at the end of my set to pack up my stuff, a couple from Poland asked, “How much for the purple dancing girl?”

    Ordinarily, my dancing girls, like my leis, are not for sale. But today I made an exception. “Five dollars.”

    They conferred as I continued packing. The man finally pulled out a $50-dollar bill. There was only $5.55 in my case, plus $2 in starter money. I made change from my wallet, nearly doubling my daily take without playing a note.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: ,

  3. Good Enough for Me

    0

    September 23, 2016 by admin

    The cowboy said he would sing 2 more songs, so I set up at center stage and listened to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and the Bee Gee’s “You Don’t Have to Show It.”

    A plump, elderly Chinese woman seemed fascinated by my colorful paraphernalia. “Have you got time for a hula today?”

    “Yes,” she said with a giggle.

    I put the lei around her neck. “Do you know how to hula?”

    “Yes,” she said.

    “Ok, then, let’s go to the hukilau.” She continued to smile and nod in the affirmative. “So you know it?”

    “Yes.”

    “You must be from Hawaii.”

    “Yes.”

    When I started to play “The Hukilau Song,” however, it became clear that all she really knew was how to say “yes.” After a few bars, she gave up and, laughing, gave me back the lei, along with $2.

    A group of Spanish girls danced next. After a ragged beginning, they soon fell into a rhythm and ended the dance in unison.

    A 50-something man from Arizona handed me a tightly folded dollar bill. “I love New York,” he said.

    Next came the Brazilians. First 2 women who fused the hula with a samba gave me $2, then an extended family, wearing white tee shirts that read “Klaus, 5 years, in New York,” gave me $3. Klaus was a handsome boy celebrating his 5th birthday.

    A young woman from Utah wanted to hula. She called her sister over to join her. Soon after a mom and her 2 young daughters rode up on their bikes. Mom gave one of the girls a buck and sent her my way. “Thanks,” I said, picking up a lei and waving it at her. “Would you like to hula?”

    “No,” she said, and she ran back to mom and the bikes.

    An Englishman walked by. When he was right in front of me, I said, “Aloha.”

    He immediately reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar. “I have a fondness for the ukulele,” he told me. “I play it myself.”

    “Let’s hear what you can do,” I said, handing him my uke. He noodled around for a minute, getting the feel of the instrument, then strummed out the opening chords to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

    By the time I packed up, with 12 singles in my pocket, everyone seemed to have gone home. The benches were empty. The young Chinese woman, who had been making big bubbles by the water, decided to haul her stuff closer to the arcade, where whatever people there were huddled in the shade.

    “This spot no good,” she told me as she walked by.

    I said, “Good luck.” It had been good enough for me.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: , , ,

« Older Entries

Archives