Remember the bird’s nest in the crook of Daniel Webster’s right elbow?  There is another, in the palm of his left hand, hardly visible behind his thick bronze fingers.  The catalpas up the path are splendidly adorned in clusters of white flowers, with petals lightly stained with pollen, like a tablecloth after a tea party.

The Conservancy Event is over, but it takes another day or 2 to clean up.  I might have set up by the lake and taken my chances, except for the noise of the truck engines’ idling while volunteers loaded dirty linens and folding chairs.

Under the Norway maple, I started strumming, wondering, hardly 5 minutes into my 90-minute session, whether today might be the day I don’t make carfare.  There was a skinny 10-year-old sitting with his parents and sister on the outcrop behind me.  About 15 minutes in, he walked around the fence and gave me a dollar.  Another 15 minutes passed and a large group of high schoolers from California walked by.

“Has this group got time for a hula dance today?”

“Can’t stop, gotta catch a plane,” said the leader, but one young lady managed to find a dollar and put it in my case before being hustled along.

No need for concern, I thought, I was bound to get another tip in the next 45 minutes.  And I did:  2 women on bikes stopped to take pictures of the rowboats on the lake, a pretty tableau of sky and clouds reflected in the water, with the towers of the Majestic and the San Remo rising above the park’s green canopy.

A woman, a man, a woman, put singles in my case, then another large group of high schoolers came up the stairs from the east toward me.  “Does this group have time for a hula today?”

The leader hesitated.  “Anybody want to do the hula?” I addressed the kids, and of course they did.  I handed out all my leis and off we danced to “The Hukilau Song.”  I stopped at the second verse and had the kids pass the leis to the next troupe of dancers, one of whom was a 40-something buff, bearded teacher who hula’ed with exaggerated moves that made the kids roar.  While he was telling me they were from Grand Junction, Colorado, the kids put the leis back and layered singles, a lot of singles, in my case.

$14.51 is a good day, especially under the maple.