It was another warm day for March. The park is slowly showing color: purply-white phlox divericata, red-striped ground tulips with golden yellow middles, deep blue wood hyacinth, yellow daffodils, baby-blue chindoxia and dusty brown hellebore. The rose bushes are bursting with claret-colored leaves, the magnolias have popped, the forsythia have flowered, and the fern-like leaves of the willows by the lake droop toward the water.

The buskers too are out in force. Benny and Griff still cavort at the foot of the stairs by the fountain, and the amplified cowboy sings along with his recordings. At my secondary location, near the maple on the path, the doo-wop ensemble, consisting of a bass viol, a lead singer and 4 backups, has gathered a large crowd around them. I crossed the road in search of place to set up. After wandering through the area around the Conservatory Pond, I circled back and found a place under a pin oak.

A young man started me off with a dollar, followed a few minutes later by an older man, who folded his bill into a tight aerodynamic package which he launched into my case. A trio of bicyclists from Denmark stopped near me, one of whom dismounted to give me dollar.

An older couple stopped to chat. I’d seen them before over the years. We talked about retirement; they wanted to know where the Meta the harpist and Arlen the dulcimerist had gone. I, of course, could not tell them.

A large school group came toward me from the east. “Does this group have time for a hula dance?” I asked the apparent leader. “Could be,” she said.

I handed out a dozen leis, my entire inventory, and off we went to the Hukilau. At the end of 2 verses, the dollars started rolling in. Usually a large group is good for $3-4, but these kids, from somewhere in Connecticut, kept dropping money in my case until there was a large heap of bills. I put my metal capo on top of the pile to keep it from blowing away.

Not long afterward, 2 girls from the Florida panhandle went to the Hukilau. One of them gave me a dollar, the second gave me $2, and a third, the designated documentarian, kicked in a fiver.

A steady flow of music lovers added to the pile until quitting time. Despite the competition, which had driven me to set up in this unfamiliar spot, it was a stellar day.