The day started out cool and windy, and ended warm and windy. Yet another guitarist serenaded the throngs at the Image Mosaic, this time with “Here Comes the Sun.”

The water in Central Park was turned on. The sparkling splash of Bethesda Fountain accompanied me throughout my set, and will so now until fall. On the masts flanking the lake were hung long green pennants that snapped in the wind, the metal halyards clanging noisily.

Before I could ask a group of middle-schoolers if they had time for a hula, they were pawing through my leis. We danced a single verse of “The Hukilau,” while the adult leader of the group waited impatiently nearby. As they ran off, a few kids dropped singles into my case; one girl, with purple highlights in her hair, ran back from the Arcade in order to make a belated contribution.

The day was extraordinarily beautiful. Two moms with their toddlers listened from the bench. One of the kids, about 2 years old, bounced to the music, approached cautiously, then ran back to familiar arms. A woman walked by and thanked me with a buck. The toddler approached again, ran back. Finally, holding mom’s hand, the toddler made it all the way and dropped a Susan B. “And the other one?” asked mom. It is a well-known phenomenon: children tend to pocket money meant for me.

A man my age walked up with a big smile on his face. “You keep the real songs alive. I love the low poetry of the lyrics. I can’t stand what passes for music today.”

I agreed. “Nobody rhymes ‘daily’ with ‘ukulele’ anymore, or my personal favorite, ‘hula’ and ‘Honolula,’ although Dylan did rhyme ‘Honolula’ with ‘Ashtabula’ in the ‘70s.”

“Don’t you get discouraged that so many people just ignore you?”

I opened my arms to take in the magnificent day. He smiled with understanding and put $2 in my case. “You’ve got the right attitude.”

People do indeed ignore me, although I figure for every $1 put in my case I bring $5 worth of aloha.

A Hispanic family gathered around. “Have you got time for a hula today?”

“How much?”

“Nothing, it’s free.” So the 4 children, ranging in age from 6 to 16, donned leis and hula-ed away, laughing and jostling each other while dad shot video. When they finished and moved on to other delights, a middle child ran back with a dollar.

It was a big day for Brits, where they love the uke. “My favorite movie is ‘Sons of the Desert,’” one man told me, so together we sang out a few bars of “Honolulu Baby.” It was a $10 performance, boosting me to $22 for the day.