Another day of high temperatures and low humidity brought me back to Bethesda Fountain. An Italian man from the Veneto took video. After telling me what a fine singing voice I had, he walked off. A couple from Lucerne, Switzerland, dressed in biking clothes, broke into free style dance as I rocked out to “I Saw Stars.” They gave me $2, and pronounced me “great.”

The international theme of the day continued with a preteen from Finland. She danced demurely and rewarded me with a dollar. An Indian family spanning 3 generations gathered around me. The grandkids, a boy of 6 or so, and a girl of 4, danced for a few bars, but the boy was more interested in the toy hula girl on the stone step behind me. “What do you think makes it move?” I asked.

“The wind?”

“No, sir,” I said, picking up the toy. “Check this out. Sunlight is collected by this little solar panel, which sends a small electrical charge through this wire coil.” I pulled the hula girl off her base to show him the spool of copper inside. Then I showed him the magnet attached to a pendulum that moved over the coil; the other end of the pendulum was hinged to the hula girl’s arms, so, when it swung, her arms moved from side to side. Reassembling her, I turned to his mom. “There you have it, the principle of electromagnetism in a 25-cent toy.” Mom gave me a dollar; grandma gave me two.

A group of Iowa high school girls decided to dance. None knew how to hula, so I gave a quick lesson. It required more explanation than usual because none had ever seen the ocean or been on a beach. Bright girls all, however, they went to “The Hukilau” in their imaginations, throwing their nets into the sea, and singing songs of love under the silvery moon. There was at least a fiver in it for me.

A hipster and I locked eyes and exchanged smiles. Ten feet past me, he stopped, found a dollar in his pocket and came back to give it to me. A young boy, sitting with his parents on the bench in the shade, gave me a buck, but would not hula.

As I packed up, two 20-somethings, who had been eating their lunch near the lake, each gave me a dollar. “Have you got time for a hula today?”

“No,” one said, “we have to get back to work. I wish we could, you’re wonderful.”

In addition to the $15.35 in my pocket, I went home with a “fine”, a “great”, and a “wonderful” to my credit, making it another most excellent day.