Posts Tagged ‘Covenant House’

  1. A Change of Seasons

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    September 14, 2016 by admin

    The autumnal lantana, all oranges and yellows, were met by splashes of red from the begonia and cleome. The reliable rose bushes had more orange hips than red blossoms. At the Imagine Mosaic, Michaelmas daisies spread through the undergrowth. The guitarist sang “Love Me Do.”

    The chestnut darkens more every time I see it. The pods on the catalpa are 18 inches long; they hang from the high branches like Spanish moss. There are fewer children in the park, a sure sign of the changing season.

    At Bethesda Fountain, tucked into a corner at the bottom of the stairs, a woman wailed into a microphone, in the style of junkie torch singers. Her amplification equipment was strewn at her feet. Beyond melody and lyric, without accompaniment, she scratched out a music of her own.

    At the south end of the fountain, the cowboy was still at it. I nodded and kept walking.

    “My fingers hurt,” he said. “One more song and I’m gone.”

    While he finished up, I laid out my paraphernalia and tuned up.

    For many years, I’ve watched a well-dressed man, with a clipboard and credentials around his neck, approach people and ask for donations to his cause, Covenant House, a support organization for homeless youth. At first, I pegged him for a scam artist. After all these years, however, I believe he’s legit. We rarely exchange more than a nod of recognition, but today he grinned, said, “I’d like to give you something,” and dropped 4 quarters in my case.

    Two old ladies, who had been sitting on the bench, gave me a dollar a piece.

    Two young ladies, dressed in black, walked by. “Have you got time for a hula today?” They were from Lithuania. Their English was perfect; their hulas were not. After a few bars of “The Hukilau Song,” they gave it up, started dancing free-style and attracted a small audience. I got a dollar a dancer.

    A woman walked by and said, “You’re a lot better than that other one,” jerking her head toward the tortured torch singer.

    Later in my set, a man came off the bench and threw in a buck, making it, in toto, a $6 day.

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