The city is simmering. At the mosaic the guitarist sings, “Here Comes the Sun.” Out on the lawn a mob of day camp kids are picnicking in clusters of yellow and blue tee shirts. Back on the path, toddlers squeal when the sprinklers come around to cool their knees and toes.

The singing from the arcade was really loud, it had to be amplified. It sounded like a rhythm and blues orchestra. At center stage, however, the noise was nothing I couldn’t drown out with noise of my own. Soon three 20-something women showed some interest in the hula. “They’re from Poland,” one of them told me, “they’re shy. I’m Serbian,” she added, “I live in Astoria.” Unlike the Polish women of yesterday, the Serbo-Astorian knew enough to tip a dollar.

Next some Finnish kids gave me $2. They were out running, and had stopped to listen. As it happened, I’d been reading about Emil Zatopek, the Czech Locomotive, who won 3 gold medals at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. They knew of him and didn’t seem to like him much.

All the while, the noise from the arcade echoed out past the fountain and over the lake. I had already decided to finish my set and check out its source on my way out, when a motorcycle policeman rode slowly by. “Excuse me, Officer,” I said, “I don’t mean to bother you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I suppose I do,” I continued, quickly laying out the regulations all buskers must obey, a thumbnail history of selective actions against buskers, including arrest.

“The acoustics are so good under there they don’t need amplification,” he concluded.

“Exactly.”

“I’ll check it out.” He continued riding around the fountain and dismounted at the arcade. I broke into “Fit as a Fiddle.”

A pack of Australian boys stopped to chat. They passed around my uke, paying $2 for the privilege.

A group of Jewish Day Camp girls got permission to hula from their leader, a 30-something woman with a clipboard. At the end of “The Hukilau Song” they returned their leis and said thank you.

“You guys did a great hula,” I told them. “In Hawaiian we say, ‘tov m’ode’.”

“That’s not Hawaiian,” one of the girls challenged me. “That’s Hebrew.”

“I was told it was Hawaaiian, I must have been misinformed.”

The motorcycle policeman coasted to a stop in front of me. “They’re legit,” he said. “No amplification. It’s a big group, maybe 30-40 voices. But no violations.”

A father and daughter rode up on bicycles. The daughter, 4 or 5, did a lovely hula. They were from Senegal. The father sent her back to me with 2 quarters. “Mahalo.”

As I packed up, with a respectable $11.60 in my pocket, a young black man in tee shirt and shorts sat down next to me. He was with the group in the arcade. They were from Kansas and were going home soon. He questioned me on what values were dear to me: any guess where this conversation was headed?

“There is only 1 rule, the Golden Rule,” I answered, “Or as Timothy Leary said, ‘Live and Let Live.’ Everything else is bullshit.”

“Jesus said, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”

“Did he?” I hoisted my ukulele onto my back. “Aloha.”

“Jesus loves you.”