With so few suitable days remaining in the season, I ventured out on Monday despite the cool temperature. It was just 60 degrees, and the sparse crowds at Bethesda Fountain wore hats, coats and scarves. Singing in the sun kept me warm.

A trio of Italians got off their bikes near me and started to take pictures. The boats on the lake, fall colors on the far shore, and crystal blue sky above complemented the brick, stone and bronze of the place. As the others remounted, a young man came toward me and placed a dollar in my case. It lay there alone for some time until a thin elderly woman got up off the bench to add a handful of quarters.

Barreling down the path came a large group of teenagers. “Have you guys got time for a hula today?” There was a scrum for leis, then the kids lined up and danced to “The Hukilau Song.” They were 8th graders from Gloucester, NJ, and were in no hurry at all. After the dance, the group colonized the grassy hill beyond the benches, tossing a frisbee, snacking, and generally slacking off until their next activity. Three times, a gaggle of girls broke away and asked to dance again. For variety, I played “My Little Grass Shack” and “Honolulu Eyes,” but the last group of girls wanted to go to the hukilau again. All told, I collected $2 and change. Two unaffiliated boys of the same age had been sitting by the fountain to watch the show. When the group finally gathered to leave, the boys each gave me a dollar.

Maybe because there were so few tourists today, I became aware of some new presences. A tall, muscular man in jeans and a tee shirt walked slowly around the fountain, asking loudly who had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior; he offered baptism right then and there. A man set up on the opposite side of the fountain with a microphone and tape recorder. He was lip-syncing to Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.”

I was packing up to leave when the saxophone player sat down near me. “Are you coming or going?”

“It’s all yours,” I said.

He rolled his eyes toward Frank. “There’s something new here every day,” he said, warming up with scales. As I walked away, I heard the sax’s rendition of “New York, New York,” a jazzy fortissimo. Frank didn’t stand a chance.