A knowledgeable reader has informed me that the plants I cannot identify are the annuals gomphrena and celosia.  Except for a single golden stella and 2 pink dog roses, gomphrena and celosia provided the only color behind the benches on Friday, the fourth day in a row of beautiful busking weather in Central Park.

The Imagine Mosaic guitarist was singing “Eight Days a Week.”  A yellow-vested workman on break shouted to his buddy, “One of me favorites.”

Leaving Strawberry Fields, I noticed the wood anemone had emerged from the scrub along the path.  It was already 5 feet high, with large buds visible in a nest of leaves at the end of the long stems.

At Bethesda Fountain, the cowboy was finishing up “Song Sung Blue” (Neil Diamond, 1972).  He motioned to me to sit down for his last number, “Quando, Quando, Quando” (Engelbert Humperdinck, 1968), accompanied by prerecorded strings.

My first hula dancer was a teen-aged Australian boy.  At the end of “The Hukilau Song,” he rejoined his parents and walked away.

Obnoxiously loud music started blaring to my right.  Something was going on near the big bubble man.  A young man had spread roses on the ground in front of a young woman.  He dropped to one knee.  It was a marriage proposal, complete with an amplified soundtrack.  There was nothing to be done but stand quietly and wait for the scene to play itself out.  She said yes, they kissed, the crowd applauded.  A friend, who had been taking pictures, finally bent down and turned the music off.

A group of young men wanted a picture.  One of them gave me a dollar.  When I asked where he was from, he answered, “Verona,” as if answering “Italy” would have done an injustice to his heritage.

A cheerful mom from Hagerstown, MD, offered up her son and daughter to the hula.  The kids did a credible dance; mom gave me a fiver.

An Asian mom unbuckled her baby from the stroller and gave her a little push toward me.  She swayed to the music of “Get Out and Get Under the Moon.”  Mom was delighted and handed the baby a dollar to give to me.  The child ran off, the mother gave chase and came back with my gratuity.

Another baby girl, named Tenzing, from Tibet, was unleashed by her mother.  She walked to within a few feet of me and looked up, locking eyes.  When I finished my song, she started to cry.  Mom picked her up with one arm, as she dropped a dollar in my case with the other.

A prosperous-looking man in a straw hat and Bermuda shorts put a fiver in my case.  As he walked by he said, “Good luck to you in your life.”

A group of Dutchmen walked by.  A teenaged boy fell behind to do a hula.  I threw a lei over his head and he danced to a quick rendering of the first verse of “The Hukilau Song,” sans intro.  Handing back the lei, he said, “You make people happy,” before running off to rejoin his group.

A boy and girl, both under 20, straggled by.  “Have you got time for a hula today?”  They were hesitant, embarrassed.  “We’re homeless,” the boy said.

“All right, then, this hula’s for the homeless.”  I asked them to imagine they were in Hawaii, blue sky, warm sand, the ocean waves lapping at the shore.  They smiled, swaying as I sang to them like palm trees in the breeze.”

“You know, I feel pretty good,” the boy said, returning his lei.  We shook hands.

“Yeah, that was fun,” said the girl.  Together, they turned and blended back into the crowd.

A mom, dad and 2 kids sat at the edge of the fountain.  The kids had watched the homeless hula.  I motioned for them to step up and dance next, but they quickly turned away.  When they got up to leave, however, each kid had been provided a dollar for me.