The cool weather has arrived. People in the park were bundled up in sweaters and coats. At the fountain, the cowboy was back in the northwest corner; Meta was installed on the bench. I sat down to chat.

“I hope you don’t expect to make any money today,” she said. “I’m lucky if I can get anyone to give me a quarter.”

“I have no expectations. They last few times I’ve been out have been dismal.”

“Do you want to play here? I’ve already been here 4 hours, I’m going home. Maybe this is your kind of crowd.”

As she packed up, I laid out my paraphernalia and started my set. Before pushing her harp up the hill to the east, Meta pulled her granny skirt above her knees and did a little hula. “Here,” she said, tossing a coin in my case. “Let me get you going with 10 pesos.”

“Any idea what’s it’s worth?”

“About 50 cents, not nothing,” she said.

A good thing, too, because once again it was a dismal day for buskers. After an hour of singing my heart out, after a Romanian walk-away, and a lunch crowd audience devoid of aloha, Meta’s pathetic 10 peso coin still laid there all alone. It looked very like a zero dollar day; in fact, I perversely hoped that it would be, so I would no longer have to wait for its inevitable arrival.

Mothers pulled their children closer when they saw me. Women clutched their purses; men patted their back pockets to make sure their wallets were still there. In the eyes of those who walked by, Mr. Ukulele must have seemed dangerous, menacing, a threat to persons and property.

After 85 minutes, a woman in her 70s stopped a few steps from me and made a quarter turn away so I couldn’t see what she was doing. Clearly, she was digging in her handbag. Too often I’ve seen this maneuver, and been disappointed when a cell phone or a camera emerged, rather than the money that an appreciative passerby might give me. This time, however, a dollar did appear and was laid carefully in my case.

In the last 5 minutes of my set, 2 Polish girls danced a wild hula , full of arm-waving and high-stepping. Breathless, they returned the leis and walked off.