The guitarist sang, “Imagine all the people,” but no imagination was required.  The crowd was as impenetrable as those at the Sistine Chapel.  Finally, I broke from the pack and hurried to Bethesda Fountain.  The park workers who had guided the delivery trucks to the site of the fund-raiser on Wednesday and Thursday had assured me that all would be back to normal today, and they did not lie.

“Have you got time for a hula today?”

The woman smiled, hesitated, then the large man she was with said, “Yes, of course.”  At the end of the dance, he handed me a twenty.  I asked him if he wanted change, but he waved me off.

I got my first 20-dollar tip one fall day in 2007.  An old man had been sitting on the bench with his attendant through several songs.  The attendant walked up with the twenty while I was singing; at the end of the song, I walked to the old man to thank him.

“Do you know ‘Honolulu Baby’?” he asked.  I had to admit I did not.  “If you’re going to sing the ukulele canon, you really should learn it.”  I took his advice.  Over the next few years I hoped to run into him again to thank him, because “Honolulu Baby” has become a mainstay of my repertoire.

A woman accompanying 2 developmentally challenged teenagers, a boy and a girl, came by.  The girl wanted to hula, but mostly just stood still and smiled.  The woman, camera in hand, showed her the moves, but we got to the end of “The Hukilau Song” without hula-liftoff.

A woman took pictures from the edge of the plaza.  Most photographers get their shot and walk away.  The woman, seeing me see her, approached with a handful of quarters.

A 40-something man with his 2 daughters stopped to dance.  They were from London, although the man was originally from Belgium.  He gave each of the girls a dollar for me, then stuck around to chat about the political situations in both the US and UK.

A young woman sat on the bench in front of me.  She appeared to be writing in a notebook; from time to time she looked up to listen.  After 30 minutes or so, she gathered her things and walked up to me.  She put a dollar in my case, then asked me questions about my music.  “I’ve heard ‘Tiptoe through the Tulips,’ but all those other songs are new to me.  Did you write them?”  Her name was Sophie.  She used to play classical guitar, but now she thought a ukulele was the way to go.

Two guys walked past.  “Aloha,” I said.  They stopped and consulted, then walked back to toss a handful of change into my case.

As usual, at the end of my set, I counted my take:  $26.53.  A good day, however, got better, when I unfolded the dollar I got from Sophie and found this drawing.