1. Hula Volunteers

    0

    October 12, 2017 by admin

    Another warm day, another opportunity to attain ukulele bliss.  I got a late start and felt myself hurrying toward Bethesda Fountain, although I did stop long enough to record the anemone score:  4-14.

     

    An Israeli woman and her 3 daughters sat at the fountain near center stage.  I was aware of the girls peeking at me while I set up my paraphernalia.  As always, the solar-powered hula girls were, well, magnetic.  When I stood to play and smiled at them, the younger ones, twins, turned away and hid behind their mother; the eldest smiled back.  After a few songs — and hearing me ask, more than once, if someone had time for a hula – the sisters approached and asked to dance.

     

    At the end of the dance, collecting the leis, I said, “Tov meod,” which I thought was Hebrew for “very good.”  The girls looked at me blankly.  “Don’t the kids say ‘tov meod’ anymore?” I turned to the mother.

     

    “They haven’t heard Hebrew for a while,” she explained.  “We’ve been here 3 weeks.”

     

    Each kid put a dollar in my case.  I sang “I Wonder Where My Little Hula Girls Have Gone,” revising the lyric to “they’re no longer on the beach at Tel Aviv.”

     

    A photographer took a video of me singing.  I gave him a big smile; he gave me a buck.

     

    A family with a teenage son wandered past me to the lake.  The kid slowed and looked me over.  A moment later, he came back with a fiver.  He was from Colorado and played the guitar.  I offered him the uke, assuring him the chording was the same, and 33% easier, 4 strings instead of 6.  In a soft voice he said no, and meant it.

     

    A family of 4 from Nashville stopped to hula.  The elder daughter, age 8, put on a lei, ready to go, but the younger wouldn’t dance unless Daddy danced.  Daddy put on a lei and danced an expressive hula with his elder daughter, to the delight of the younger, who had immediately reneged on the bargain behind Mommy’s legs.

     

    Dad wanted to give me $5, but only had a 20.  There was $11 in my case, 2 singles in my wallet, and a couple of bucks in my pants pocket.  While assembling all these bills, I asked about business in Nashville.  “It’s booming,” he said.  “Companies are moving there like crazy.  No income tax.”

     

    The next family was from Memphis.  Two daughters danced to the hukilau, while mom and dad beamed.  “Is there a group here from Tennessee?” I asked dad, who had laid his fiver carefully over the lone 20-dollar bill in my case.  No, they were travelling on their own.

     

    A quartet of 50-something Chinese men had been chatting on the bench in front of me.  One of them came forward with a dollar, nodded to me, I to him, then returned to his friends.

     

    Three Danish children, in the shade a few yards up the path to the Boathouse, were taking coins out their parents’ hands until they had enough, $1.55, which they brought to me for a hula.  The big brother, about 12, did a conscientious hula, while little brother and baby sister danced freely, if with less skill.

     

    The last hula was danced by 3- or 4-year-old Elliot, who arrived at the fountain in a stroller with his sister and parents.  “Where you from?”

     

    I heard an answer that sounded like “Navia.”

     

    I looked up at his dad.  “Latvia?”

     

    “Knoxville.”

     

    “You’re the third Tennessee family to hula today.”  Unlike the other 2, however, they only gave me a buck, bringing the day’s earnings to $22.55.

     

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: ,

  2. Endless Summer

    0

    October 11, 2017 by admin

    This summer won’t end.  The plantings in the park could use a killing frost; instead they are dying of old age.  The second growth of lantana has taken on the look of spring.  Pink roses bloom amid orange hips.  The chestnut tree, at least, looks dead and its sister tree looks not much better.  The wood anemone score:  6-20.  On the lawn to the south, people are working on their tans under yellow- and orange-leafed trees.

     

    My first donation was from a young man who said he was a comedian.  He gave me a dollar and took my card.  A woman walking by dropped 57 cents.  A man asked if he could take a picture of me, but first I made him put on a lei.  “Where are you from?”

     

    “I am from Paris,” he said, as if that said it all.  He gave me back the lei and walked off.

     

    A young man from Ohio had a dollar for me.  He was from a small town outside Cleveland.  He had not come for the baseball game.  Another young man, with his skateboard tucked under his arm, chipped in another dollar.

     

    A quintet of Venezuelan 20-somethings gathered at the fountain.  “Have you got time for a hula today?”

     

    “We have no money.”

     

    “That’s ok,” I said.  Usually, after a hula dance, those with no money manage to find a buck or two, but not in this case.  After the dance, they huddled over a map and set out for new adventures to the south.

     

    A woman in her 40’s was leading 3 other people through the park.  She wanted to hula but her friends were not interested.  “I’m from New York,” she answered my question.  “They’re from Kentucky.”

     

    “They don’t want anything to do with you,” I said, as the friends moved farther away.

     

    “F**k ‘em,” she said, then off we went to the hukilau, after which she returned the lei and ran off.

     

    I’d more than broken even on this slow, October day.  Finishing up “Little Grass Shack,” I sat down and counted $3.57, when a group of youngsters from Edmonton, Alberta, stopped to check me out.  “We’re doing hula dances today,” I said.

     

    A slight woman, dressed in red, wanted to dance, so I stood up with my uke and played “The Hukilau Song.”  She was lithe and graceful.  “Is this your first public hula?”

     

    “I dance in public all the time, just not the hula.”  She told me they’d been to the Yankee’s game last night, and were going to a hockey game tonight.  As she and her friends prepared to move on, she found a ten-spot in her wallet for me, turning a so-so outing into a winner.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: ,

  3. Vaarwel

    0

    October 3, 2017 by admin

    Another cool autumn day brought me back to the park.  A begging Buddhist stood in front of the wood anemone, so no score today.  Glancing south, I saw the sprinklers hard at work on the open field; and farther south, three cranes lifted 3 towers ever higher in the sky, contributing to the dwarfing of Central Park South.

     

    At Bethesda Fountain, the cowboy sang “Just the Way You Are” (Billy Joel, 1977), including backup singers and a horn solo.  When he sat down, I stood up and soon got a 51-cent donation from a man off the bench.

     

    “Have you got time for a hula today?” I asked 2 hand-holding men.  One, the elder, perhaps in his 40s, had wavy blonde hair and made me guess where they were from.  “Amsterdam,” I got it on the 3rd try.  They walked off, but came back later and gave me a 10 Euro bill, which I bought from myself for $12.

     

    While conducting this foreign exchange, a young man walking by gave me a dollar, and a couple who had been listening on the bench did the same.

     

    Three Norwegian children, who had ridden into the fountain area with their parents, got off their bikes and wandered my way.  It didn’t take long to get leis around their necks and to get them dancing to “The Hukilau Song.”  While we danced, another bench listener came forward with 85 cents.

     

    A tall black woman from Toronto danced a tentative hula, then walked away.  Two separate Hawaiians walked away too.  The man, a transplant from New Jersey, took out his wallet and waved his driver’s license at me.  The woman was native, danced a perfect hula to “The Hukilau Song,” then ran off to catch up with her friends.

     

    A mid-teen and her mom stopped to listen.  “I have 4 ukes,” the girl told me.  They were from Dallas.  I handed her my uke and she strummed out a sweet song.

     

    “Stay with it,” I advised.  Her mom nodded assent.  “When you think you’re ready, quit school, hit the road…”

     

    “Stop talking,” said mom.

     

    “…and make your living…”

     

    “Don’t listen.”

     

    “…like me.”

     

    At the end of my set, a woman came off the bench with $2.  She and her husband had been observing.  An American, she lived in The Hague, and got back as often as possible.  The Netherlands had contributed 14 of the $19.63 in my case, so instead of “Aloha,” I said, “Vaarwel.”

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: ,

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Archives