On my way to Bethesda Fountain on Friday, I saw a woman leaning over an unconscious man lying on the grass along the side of the road.  “He’s alive,” she told me.  Relieved, we each kept walking.

I arrived at the fountain just as the cowboy was leaving.  “Have you got time for a hula today?” I asked a family who passed by.

“I’ll hula,” said the teenaged daughter.  The family was from California, and talked among themselves while the daughter undulated like the sea, as I had instructed her.  Dad gave her a dollar, which she handed to me.

Two 50-something women stopped near me to listen.  When I finished my song, one asked, “Do you know ‘Ukulele Lady’?”

“Is that your favorite song?”

“My favorite ukulele song,” she said.  I played it for her; she gave me $2.  Neither would hula.

As soon as they left, a man led his young daughter by the hand to me.  The man’s gestures indicated that she would like to hula.  They were from Argentina.  Dancing rather awkwardly, she started laughing as her dad snapped pictures, and laughed all the way through “The Hukilau Song.”  Dad tucked a fiver under the capo I used to keep bills from blowing away.

A bearded man and his girlfriend came off the benches; he tossed me a single.  “Thanks for entertaining us,” he said.  Next, a woman pulled out a handful of change, including a Susan B., and sprinkled the coins deliberately over the cash in my case.  A man with a baby in a Snugli on his chest bounced to the music and gave me a dollar.

A toddler ran up to me.  “Do you want to do a hula dance?”

“Yes, please.”  He put the dollar his mom had given him into my case.  I put a lei around his neck and gave him my quick hula instructions:  Put out your arms to form the horizon, now move them like the waves breaking on the shore.  He tried, but could only manage one arm at a time.  When I told him to use both arms, he lifted one up and let the other drop.

Two women from Minnesota with a little girl stopped to listen.  I put a lei around the girl’s neck and started to sing “The Hukilau Song.”  The girl had no idea what to do, so the women started dancing too.  I grabbed 2 more leis for the women and off we went.  At the end of the song, one of the women said, “We have no money.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her.

A couple in their 40’s walked by hand in hand.  “Have you got time for a hula today?”  They did not have time for a hula, but they did have time to foxtrot to “Honolulu Baby,” complete with turns and dips.  The man rewarded me with $2.

I finished my set, as usual, with “My Little Grass Shack.”  When I turned to start packing up, I noticed a couple walking toward me with a dollar.  For their dollar, I encored “Honolulu Eyes.”  Stuffing $15.30 in my shirt pocket, I exited the park.

I was pleased to see that the unconscious/sleeping man was gone from the side of the road.