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.