A 4-piece jazz combo found a spot across the road from Daniel Webster.  The Russian accordionist pumped out his dirges near my spot at the fountain.  Given the high heat today, I was just as happy to play in the shade.  As I walked toward the maple, I saw a girl in a school uniform stretched across the stern of a rowboat, dangling her feet in the water.  An attendant shouted at her to get back in the boat, but she didn’t hear him.  “You need a whistle,” I said.  He shrugged and gave up.

Before I had even tuned up, a woman of a certain age stopped to ask how much for a solar-powered hula girl.  She explained that she had accidentally broken her husband’s toy and wanted to replace it.  She wanted the green one, but the toy had developed a slight hitch in her hula, so she took the yellow one instead.

“I hope you don’t need change,” I said, as I snapped the toy into its plastic case.  She handed me a fiver which I tucked under the capo.

Two girls in that same school uniform sat down on the lawn behind me.  They had never seen a ukulele.  Then more girls in uniform showed up and sat down.  “How many are there?” I asked.

“A lot.”

Soon 50-60 girls identically dressed in plaid skirts, blue sweaters and black flats had formed 3 circles on the grass.  They noisily ate their lunches.  Some of the more curious girls came over to ask me questions about the uke, but none would hula.  Two stern teachers showed up and ordered quiet for attendance.  They were from a Jewish high school in Brooklyn.  While the teachers shouted names — Rivka, Chaiya – I asked a younger woman, perhaps a parent or teachers’ aid, if they intended to stay long.  “No,” she said, “we’re leaving now.”

Once peace was restored under the maple, Joan, the park volunteer, came by.  She told me about a gig she’d landed at a Harlem night spot where she’d be singing Sondheim, accompanied by 2 ukuleles.  “I’m a little nervous,” she said.  “You’re the only uke I ever sang with.”  Before she walked on, she bought my last CD.

A teenager dropped a dollar in my case.  Shortly after, an older man, in shorts and a skimmer, laughed as he pulled out his wallet.  “You made me smile,” he said.

An Australian family with 2 young girls stopped to hula.  When they left, a young woman who had been playing with her dog off the leash behind me, leaned over the fence to drop 2 tightly wadded singles.  A 20-something walking with his girlfriend tossed in 3 quarters.  A tall, fashionably dressed blonde of indeterminate age, walking with a tall, fashionably dressed man of about 60, gently laid a dollar atop the many bills that had accumulated over my set.

When I packed up for the day, I counted $22.75.  Time to pull out another solar-powered hula girl from my stash of hula girls, and make more CD’s.