1. First Day Out

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    April 12, 2017 by admin

    The temperature shot up to the mid-70s, so, without much preparation, I set off for my first busking session of the year.  It had been a lazy winter, uke-wise.  Except for a star turn on New Year’s Eve, I hadn’t played at all, and even then I’d played my soprano uke.  My tenor uke, for outdoor playing, was in the same sorry shape I’d left it in, with pieces of paper lei and dried leaves crushed in the velvet corners, my last CD in a cracked jewel case, broken cocktail umbrellas, and the uke itself horribly out of tune.

     

    Minimally organized, I went forth to Central Park, at 72nd Street, where The Dakota had emerged from its safety netting of last year, with freshly cleaned buff brick and ornate stone and terra cotta trim.  Entering the park at the Women’s Gate, I was treated to a hillside of daffodils, tulips and hyacinth.  The rose bushes had finger-sized shoots growing from old wood, while grape hyacinth bloomed at their feet.

     

    At the Imagine Mosaic, the same spring flowers, along with an expanse of wood hyacinth, bloomed all around.  The troubadour on duty played “Let It Be.”  There were aspirational buds on the chestnut, and farther down the hill, hellebore made a great success where a few years ago rhododendron failed.  Fuzzy flames adorned the magnolia, and astilbe unfurled its leaves low to the ground.  In the middle distance and on Cherry Hill fruit trees bloomed pink and white.

     

    At Bethesda Fountain, where I like to set up, a man played lounge music on an amplified acoustic guitar.  Buddhist beggars stalked the crowd, pushing prayer flags into people’s hands.  The lake teemed with rowboats.

     

    I moved on to my maple tree, halfway to the boat house.  I started out with the old playlist.  Unlike other first days, I was able to remember most of the chords and lyrics.  Soon enough a woman tossed 31 cents into my case.  A while later, a man gave me $2 for the long video he shot.  I got a dollar from a 20-something woman, and another dollar and change from 2 pre-teen girls.  No one wanted to hula.  “But thanks for asking,” said one of the girls.

     

    A man stopped and shot another long video; I gave him a good show.  He peeled off a fiver and tossed it in my case.  “You like ukulele music?” I asked.

     

    “Yeah,” he said in a thick Russian accent.  “It makes me happy.”

     

    Me too.

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