Big, billowy gray storm clouds rolled in on cool moist winds from the southeast, covering the sun. The conditions were perfect for playing center stage. As I tuned up and strummed out a basic chord pattern (G, G7, C, Cm, G, E7, A7, D7, G), a forty-something woman wearing a MMA (Metropolitan Museum of Art) sticker walked up to take my picture. “Did you get it? Good. Now how about a hula?”

She was from Austin TX. After the hula, she took a selfie of the two of us and promised to send it to me. We’ll see. If she does, it will be all I get from her.

An enthusiastic 8-year-old girl with blond hair to the middle of her back improvised for her parents and sister. The sister, entering her teens, refused to join in. At the end of the dance, it took a moment to disentangle her hair from the lei.

A teenaged couple walked up to me. “Have you got time for a hula today?”

“No, we just wanted to give you this,” said the boy, handing me a dollar. “We really like your music.”

Over the next 45 minutes, the same scene played out three times. Adults with a young child stop to listen. An adult presses money in the child’s hand and gives instruction on how to put it in my case. The child approaches, withdraws, approaches again, drops the money and runs. “Thank you,” I say, first to the child, then to the adult, for teaching the important lesson of aloha.

The clouds moved faster. The wind shifted; it was blowing from the west, making it hard to tell whether the rain had started or I was just getting wet from the spray off the fountain behind me. There was already 3 times more money in my case today than yesterday, so I packed up and headed out of the park to the subway. By the time I got home it was pouring.