1. An Ideal Spring Day

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    April 28, 2018 by admin

    After rain and cool weather, the forecasters called Thursday an ideal spring day.  Although the temperature hovered below 70, I had to agree.  The trees in the park were starting to green.  Spring bulbs made a nice showing:  white and yellow daffodils; red, white and pink tulips, purple wood hyacinth, yellow fritillaria.  Waves of pheasant’s eye narcissi lined the path to Strawberry Fields, punctuated by more wood hyacinth, solomon’s seal and hellebore.  Violets bloomed under the fences; set back in the dappled shade, were pansies, violas and trillium.  In the lawn surrounding Daniel Webster, the first dandelions had popped up.

     

    Overhead, the magnolias were magnificent.  Cherry Hill earned its name; pink petals floated, the souls of the samurai, to the pink carpet below.

     

    Bethesda Fountain was packed, and I was not the first busker there.  The player of a one-stringed Chinese instrument bowed his squeaky tunes from the bench opposite center stage.  I kept walking to my second stage, beneath the Norway maple overlooking the rowboat rental operation.

     

    A woman started me off with a dollar, then a man, followed by 2 young women.  “Have you got time for a hula today?” I asked them.  They did not.

     

    A high school group from Manassas, Virginia, stopped to hula.  Ten kids, lined up against the fence, waved their arms and wiggled their hips through both verses of “The Hukilau Song.”  Three of them dropped singles into my case.

     

    A man from Oakland, California, gave me a thumbs-up and a buck.

     

    “Say hi to my dad,” a girl said, shoving a phone in my face as she walked by.  “Hi, Dad.”

     

    On my way into the park, I’d chatted with a chaperone of a middle school group from Boston.  Now here they were again, on their way out of the park.  “Has this group got time for a hula today?”  The lead teacher hesitated, the kids reached for the leis, and very soon I had another large group lined up for the hukilau.  “Does anyone know how to hula?” I asked.

     

    “I do,” one of the girls said.  Her name was Estelle.

     

    “Estelle is the kahuna,” I said.  “Follow her lead.”  At the end of the dance, the chaperone laid a fiver in my case, and took $2 change.

     

    Two young teens asked their parents if they could dance.  They were from Rochester, NY, and one of them was having a birthday.  They giggled through their hula, after which dad tossed me a fiver, no change required.

     

    I closed my set with “Little Grass Shack.”  With $15 in my pocket, I made my way back to Central Park West, to the subway and home.  Forecasts for an ideal spring day had been accurate.

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  2. Tuning Up, 2018

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    April 15, 2018 by admin

    The weather forecast for Friday promised a beautiful day with temps in the 70’s, so Thursday night I got down my tenor uke and tuned up.  The hum in my low-G string reminded me that I should have put a new one on last busking season.  It takes a few days for a string to settle in, but there was no help for it; I spent my first day of busking retuning after every song.

     

    Central Park at W. 72nd St. still had a wintry feel.  The trees had not yet leafed out, although the spring flowers were starting to show:  yellow and white daffodils, pale violet myrtle, blue chionodoxera, and scattered red and white tulips from some prior year’s planting.  Behind the benches, a single 2-foot tall yellow fritillaria bloomed in the sun.  Forsythia has started to show here, while deeper in the park it is already in full glory.

     

    In my haste to start busking, I left my water bottle at home, but was happy to find the water fountains had been turned on.  Snowdrops burst through the undergrowth around Strawberry Fields, where Randy, the dobro player, now played early Beetles on his guitar.  It was nice to see a friend.

     

    Making my way down the path, past hellebore galore, patches of violets and fat magnolia buds 3 inches tall, I heard the 5-piece jazz combo across the road from Daniel Webster.  The dog roses were leafing out; pale impatiens hugged the ground.  More magnolias, these in full sun, were clothed in blossoms.

     

    Bethesda Fountain, center stage, beckoned.  “Welcome back, sir,” said the hot dog man when I bought a bottle of water.

     

    “Hey, you’re back,” said Carole, greeting me as I sat by the fountain and set up my solar-powered hula dolls.  Carole, with camera, is a regular at the fountain, which is how I got to know her.  “The place is hopping today.  You’ll do great.”

     

    Tuning up — always tuning — I chatted with a young couple from Cherry Hill.  Soon they were on their feet, paper leis around their necks, doing the hula to “The Hukilau Song.”  She gave me a dollar; he gave me two.

     

    I started my set, as usual, with “Making Love Ukulele Style,” and moved through my play list, successfully remembering, for the most part, all the chords and lyrics.  Two young women stopped to listen.

     

    “Have you got time for a hula today?”

     

    No, they didn’t, until I picked up a lei and dangled it in front of them.  One of the girls came forward to dance, the other followed.  The follower lived in the city; her friend was visiting from Austin.  They dropped a buck and change.

     

    A man who had been sitting at the fountain to my right gave me $2, as did an English couple walking by.  A large group of teenagers from the UK spread out on the benches to my right.  After a few tunes they came up to me, singly or in pairs, some to dance, some to investigate my solar-powered hula dolls, each making a little donation before returning to the group.

     

    Two little girls shyly approached, their mom proudly watching.

     

    “Would you like to hula?”  They nodded, and I put a lei around their necks.  The older girl, who was about 5, quickly got the hang of it, then began choreographing her little sister.  By the time I started the second verse of “The Hukilau Song,” the girls were moving in unison, step to the right, step to the left, arms waving, fingers aflutter.  Their mom, who was also English, gave me a fiver.

     

    As well as I remembered chords and lyrics, I couldn’t remember my playlist.  There were songs, I was sure, I hadn’t played yet, but what?  After more than an hour, as I looked around at the lake, the sky, the pennants in the wind and the azaleas lining the path to the boathouse, I saw the willows on the shore, leaves turning from yellow to green.  Of course, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” which begins, “Evening shades are creeping, willow trees are weeping…”

     

    A family from Belarus danced the hula.  A couple from Queens, soon to be married, did too.  During my final number, “Little Grass Shack,” a sixty-something couple from western Canada stopped to chat.  He tossed 2 singles in my case, bringing the day’s take to $27.32, a hefty sum marking an auspicious start to the season.

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