The New York City Marathon is Sunday. The W. 72nd St. entrance to the park was blocked off with 8-foot silver fencing. There were motorized vehicles driving every which way. Inside the park, more fencing. The city is busy cleaning up for the event. On the path leading away from Strawberry Fields, 3 gardeners pulled up black-stemmed boneset and multiflora roses. “Multiflora,” said one gardener, “because they multiply.”

On the upper branches of the catalpas, the long skinny seed pods hung like black tinsel among the broad, yellowing leaves. For reasons unknown to me, the flag across the road was at half-mast. On a grassy patch, 15-20 new moms with their babies were exercising back into shape. The restrooms south of the arcade were newly hosed down.

The guy I call Frank, the lip syncher, was set up near my spot at the fountain, his amp turned up high. I stopped to inform him that amplification was not permitted; it did not go well. “I see amps here all the time,” he said. “Do you hassle them? Why you hassling me? You gonna call the cops?” I explained that since the Quiet Zone Wars, we buskers agreed to police ourselves and his egregious behavior could ruin it for the rest of us. “Nobody but you is bothering about me,” he said by way of justification. “It’s not nearly as bad as the subway.”

Having made no impression at all, I wished him Aloha and headed toward the boathouse. As it happened, Frank was not lip-synching; he had a fine voice and interspersed his performance with high kicks, break dancing and acrobatics.

A dollar from a young couple got me started. Two English lads threw in 6 quarters, then stopped a few yards away and conferred. Moments later, they came back and gave me a handful of change. When I counted my take at the end of the set, I found a 1913 Buffalo nickel among the coins.

A young parks department employee opened up the wire fence in front of me so he could mow the lawn there. “I’ll only be 10 minutes,” he said. Over the roar of the mower, I practiced my new numbers, “Down among the Sheltering Palms,” and “You’ve Got to Be a Touchdown Hero.”

A tall, heavily muscled young man from Brazil took the ukulele out of my hands and started playing “New York, New York.” He hadn’t quite mastered all the chords, but he made it through to the end of the song. Smiling proudly, he gave me back my uke and walked away to rejoin his friends.

It was a hula-free day. A number of people danced, but only when they’d passed me by and thought I couldn’t see them. One 30-something man with a sympathetic smile gave me a buck. During my finale, “Little Grass Shack,” a couple stopped to hear me pine for my “fish and poi;” they too contributed a buck.

The fellow who mowed the grass had taken up a broom and was sweeping the leaves off the stairs. I asked him if his supervisors had ever discussed the rules governing buskers. He nodded toward Frank. “You mean like him? I told him he couldn’t amplify, but I’m not a cop. Whenever I call PEP (Parks Enforcement Patrol) they don’t come, so I don’t call anymore.”