It was “A Hard Day’s Night” for the platoon guitarist.  It was hot; the park was relatively uncrowded.  I set up in the blazing sun at Bethesda Fountain and sang to the sky.

A dark-eyed little girl came back from the benches, where her mother sat in the shade, with permission to hula.  After the first verse of “The Hukilau Song,” she walked away.  Another girl of 7-8, from Georgia, with her mom, was eager to hula, and she too walked away.  Finally, a teenaged girl, from Newport Beach, who would not hula, gave me a dollar.  “I like your music,” she said.

A woman from San Francisco said she didn’t have time to hula, but she couldn’t pull herself away, so she put on a lei and danced, gracefully and expressively.  “That was great fun,” she said.  “I feel really great.  I wish my family were here to record it.”  She returned the lei and walked away.

“Bring them back, we’ll do it again.”  As if that would ever happen.  A walk-away doesn’t grasp the concept of paying the piper.

A young couple from Flagstaff happened by.  “Not much hula in Arizona, I’ll bet.”  The girl danced a sweet, simple hula, while the boy, after snapping a few pictures, pulled out his wallet.  Tossing a dollar into my case, he said, “I’m originally from Alaska.”

“Not a hula hotspot either,” I supposed.

An 80-something woman came by with a dollar.

Two tall, self-possessed young black women allowed themselves a hula.  They fell into a synchronized display of hula moves, including twirls and shimmies, attracting a crowd.  They’d grown up together in California, now one lived in New York and the other in Chicago.  We had a good talk, then they walked away.

A man tossed in a couple of quarters and gave me a thumbs-up.

An older dad, with 2 barely walking babies, decked out in white lace dresses, encouraged them to hula.  The smaller baby, despite the dress, may have been a boy.  They barely moved; I brought “The Hukilau Song” to an end after one verse.  Dad kept pulling change out of his pocket.

It appeared to be 12-15 pennies, but when I counted it at the end of my set, there was a dime mixed in.