“What a beautiful day for fishin’.” Temps in the 80’s, humidity low, puffy white clouds scudding across the clear blue sky. I took a seat at the fountain and waited until the cowboy finished. I began with “The Hukilau Song.”

Two little French girls put on leis and waggled through a verse. Each one handed me a dollar. After a few more songs, a woman got up off the bench and tossed a buck in my case. “I truly felt as if I was there,” she said.

A photographer captured most of “Tip Toe through the Tulips.” After putting his camera away and hoisting the case over his shoulders, he stopped by with a dollar.

A half dozen teen-aged girls came down the path. “Have you got time for a hula today?”

One girl tried to drum up interest, but got no takers. “Well, I want to dance,” she said.

“What say we go to the hukilau?” I said.

“I know that one.” She danced using all the movements she’d learned in elementary school on Oahu. Barely 5 feet tall, with flowing black hair and pudgy cheeks, she attracted a crowd. I brought the dance to a close, she bowed to scattered applause, returned the lei and walked away.

A 15-year-old girl, who’d been watching from the bench, gave me a dollar. Two sisters stopped to put a dollar in my case. I invited them to hula, but only one took me up on it.

With a short time left in my set, Maggie the dog, and her owner, Marcel, stopped to say hello. This was the first time out for them in over a week.

“Have you got time for a hula today?” I addressed a couple of college girls, who, accompanied by an older woman, were wonderingly taking in the circus atmosphere at the fountain.

“I don’t, but Ashley does.” I waved a lei at Ashley, who put down her backpack and made ready to dance. This time, we skipped the hukilau and went back to “My Little Grass Shack.”

The presumptive mom found a fiver in her wallet and handed it to me. “We’re from Chicago,” she said, “and having a wonderful time.”