It had been more than a month since I’d gone a-busking, the events of life having intervened.  If I didn’t go again soon, winter will have sidelined me until the first nice day in spring.  So yesterday, when the temperature rose above 60 degrees, despite the predictions for a nor’easter, I headed for Bethesda Fountain, for what I thought of as my Farewell Tour.

It really was a crummy day.  A cold, moist wind nearly took my hat off on West End Avenue.  Gomphrena, God bless it, stood tall and colorful behind the benches and in front of the rose bushes covered in hips.  I spied 2 wild rose flowers blooming in the underbrush, beside the last remaining wild asters.  The button man was gone.  Along the path to the fountain, spirea bushes flashed foamy white bouquets. The western wood anemone had burned up, but the eastern had escaped the thuggish jewelweed and seemed to have reestablished itself 10 feet off the path at the base of a boulder.

The wind was wet and heavy.  I wondered if I’d even get to the fountain before it rained.

NOW PRESENTING ON CENTER STAGE, MR. UKULELE

There was no one around.  What people there were kept looking up, at the clouds rolling in from the northeast.  The flagpole pullies banged against the metal poles, as if sending out a warning.

A 40-something woman stood at the benches and fumbled in her purse.  Instead of her cellphone or a handkerchief, she pulled out her wallet.  I was not disappointed, there was a dollar in there for me.

A man, walking with his wife and friend, rushed up to me for a picture.  “You must wear this,” I instructed him, “I have to protect my brand.”

A kid of 10 or so approached respectfully with a dollar and laid it in my case.  “Thank you,” I said as he hurried away.  He stopped and said quietly, “You’re welcome,” as if English were not his native language.

A light drizzle started during “Tiptoe through the Tulips.”  I sang:

Knee-deep in flowers we’ll stray.

We’ll keep the showers away.

And they stayed away for another few tunes.  A sonorous thunderclap, however, signaled time to go.  I had played for 50 minutes and made $3, covering senior subway fare home, avant le deluge.