1. Mr. Ukulele and Colin, the Cowboy, Play a Duet

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    September 18, 2018 by admin

    It was another warm, overcast day.  Acorns have started to pile up against the curbstone.  At the chestnut tree in Strawberry Fields, blackening chestnuts are distributed sparsely through the blighted branches.

     

    When I got to Bethesda Fountain, Colin was strumming for a man who jumped around with his camera, photographing him from every angle.  “I got ten bucks here,” the man said, “if you guys will play something together.”

     

    “Happy to,” said I, taking out my uke.  Standing next to Colin, I asked, “What key?”

     

    “’Sweet Caroline,’ in D.”

     

    I put on a capo and strummed along, getting maybe 1 in 5 chords right, and when we finished I fished a fiver out of Colin’s tip box.  “It was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said.

     

    “I’m afraid I’m not that good at transposing on the fly.”

     

    “We’ll have to work on it,” he said, “but not now.”

     

    Colin packed up, while I set up and started playing my own repertoire.  A young woman from Sacramento danced the first hula of day, followed by 2 more northern California girls.

     

    A man, wife, toddler and au pair hung out on the bench.  From time to time, the toddler would run toward me, then turn and run back.  At one point, she got close enough for me to dangle a lei in front of her and ask if she’d like to dance.  The au pair encouraged her, but it was not to be.  The parents, however, dropped $2 in my case as they left the area.

     

    A 50-something man from the bench sat through a few tunes, then donated $2.  A couple from Kazakhstan danced a languid hula, then walked away, followed by a Lebanese couple who gave me a dollar.  “Have you got time for a hula today?”

     

    The woman did.  After the dance, she did not want to give me back the lei.  “How much?” she asked.

     

    “Two dollars,” I said.

     

    She opened her purse.  “I already gave you one,” she said, pulling out a second single.

     

    The final 30 minutes of my set drew one more man from the bench, rounding out my take for the day at $15.

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  2. Not Exactly Generous

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    September 17, 2018 by admin

    Friday was another warm day, with hurricane-influenced winds blowing wet and cool from the northeast.  When I met Dominick, the big bubble man, he said, “They’re really generous today.”

     

    I set up at Bethesda Fountain to test his hypothesis.  He was not wrong.  Three ukulele lovers, in succession, dropped a dollar into my case.  Four kids from Hunter High School stopped for a hula.  After 2 verses of “The Hukilau Song,” they handed back the leis and walked off.

     

    A young man dropped a dollar, followed shortly by an old man.

     

    An Irishman from Belfast walked into the plaza with his family and took a seat on a bench.  Resting for a spell, I saw him watching me and enjoying the music.  When it was time for him to move on, he approached me with 3 singles in his hand.  We chatted about the buskers in Grafton Street, Dublin, and how the troubles were still troubling when I was there in 1980.

     

    A woman from the benches gave me a dollar, and then, after a long lull, 2 Lubavitcher teenagers approached, asking if I’d put on tefillin this morning.  I engaged them in chitchat, but their English was terrible, and my Yiddish was worse.  We agreed they would not hula, and I would not daven.

     

    At the end of my set I counted out 11 singles, not exactly generous, but open-handed all the same.

     

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  3. Storm Warnings

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    September 15, 2018 by admin

    The dog roses sport bulging orange hips; the single dinnerplate hibiscus has started melting in the sun.  The dogwood fruit ripens pale pink to red, and a new planting of celosia sends its bottlebrush flowers skyward.

     

    The platoon guitarist sings “I Want to Hold Your Hand” at the Imagine Mosaic.  Farther along the path a single wood anemone flower is open among dozens of buds; another single flower has opened on the wood anemone behind the orange jewelweed, the stem of which is as thick as the cold water pipe in my bathroom.  Across the road near Daniel Webster, the smell of newly mown grass fills my nostrils.

     

    Despite the heat, the winds from faraway Hurricane Florence blow cool, wet air from the northeast.  Carole, the photographer, stops to chat.  “Here,” she said, pulling a dollar out of her wallet, “let me start you off.”

     

    Two Korean girls stop to hula.  They toss a dollar and change into my case.  An Irish guy lopes up to me.  “Where’s all the money?”

     

    “I was wondering the same thing.”  Looking down, I saw that he’d thrown me a Susan B.

     

    A couple of Brazilian girls stopped to hula.  In my experience, you don’t have to ask Brazilian girls twice.  Another dollar and change came my way.  A 30-something man contributed another dollar.

     

    Two women, one in a hijab, the other in a burka, slowed to study me, so I asked, “Have you got time for a hula today?”  A bearded man ran over, assessed the situation, pulled a handful of change from his pocket, and tossed it into my case before he hustled the women out of danger.

     

    All told, it was a fine outing, netting $9.05.

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