I entered the park at noon. The sprinklers were spritzing the lawns, which appeared lush and healthy under a hazy sky. Even the chestnut tree looks good today. On my way to the fountain, I saw my first female horse-drawn carriage driver. I set up at the fountain, but after about 30 minutes the sun burned through and it was too hot to stand unprotected, so I picked up and moved up the path.

At the crest of the hill a young man played his violin. He was too close to my maple tree to set up there; I split the difference between him and the fountain and started playing again in the shade. After a while, two forty-something couples slowed, listened, and examined my busking paraphernalia: a hula dancing doll, signage reading “Got Aloha?” and “This is Culture”, leis, business cards and a CD. One guy picked up my CD and turned it over to read what’s on it. He put it back, saying, “I’m in music for a living.”

Now, to be honest, music is not my living, but he couldn’t know that. I weighed my response, then let it drop unexpressed when I saw one of his companions reaching for her wallet.

“Has this group got time for a hula today?” Not today. It was a group of 30-40 elementary school kids heading back to the east side. I played “The Hukilau Song” as they shuffled by and got a number of thumbs-up. Surprisingly, one of the last kids to pass dropped a fiver in my case.

A young couple strolled by hand-in-hand. About 10 yards beyond me, the man returned to give me a buck. “What got you?” I asked.

“Tuning,” he said. Indeed, my uke was badly in need of it.

A trio of Jersey City high-schoolers selling candy came my way. I’ve seen them many times, purportedly raising money for a school event or after school activity. One of them got caught up in my song, started dancing with glee, and when I praised his taste in music, he emptied his pocket of change into my case. It was mostly pennies and nickels, but I saw a few quarters in the mix, and when I counted it up at the end of the session, the change totaled $2.73.