Posts Tagged ‘This Little Light of Mine’

  1. Suffer the Children

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    August 8, 2014 by admin

    The white nicotiana is close to 3 feet tall; its cigarette-shaped blossoms brighten the undercover near the wall. A green-shirted park worker is weeding around them. “What happened to the wisteria on the pergola?” I ask. “It didn’t bloom this year.” She shrugged. “There were a couple flowers on the north side,” she said, “but otherwise nothing.”

    Once again, I took up my spot on the path. I wasn’t there long before a little boy in a stroller, holding a beat-up uke with 3 strings, parked a few yards away. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” I said, handing him my uke in exchange. I tried to tune it up, but it was pretty far gone. His mother told me his name was Henry, and that he called the instrument a guitar, not a ukulele. “In British Columbia,” I said, “they’re using ukuleles to teach music, not…”

    “Not the recorder?” she finished my sentence. “I’m a third grade teacher, and let me tell you, the recorder is worthless, no one ever gets good at it, or continues to play it.”

    “You hear that, Henry, the uke is for life.”

    A man with a baby dropped a buck as he walked by. Three girls from Mumbai did the hula. Some bicyclists stopped to take pictures of the boats on the lake, then scraped up some small change for me. There is no bike-riding on the paths, although, like so many other park rules, it goes for the most part unheeded. Later, a man filmed me singing “Little Grass Shack,” from beginning to end, gave me a thumbs-up, and nothing else.

    Vasiliy came by, pushing his bass fiddle in front of him. “Nice day,” he said, “not so hot.”

    “You wouldn’t be so hot if you didn’t dress all in black,” I said.

    “But I must wear black,” he answered. “I am a classical musician.” We both thought about that for a second, then burst out laughing.

    Three teens, on their way home to Illinois after their stay at a Christian camp in NJ, stopped to listen. They had a few hours before their train and were planning a boat ride on the lake. A tall girl with a mouthful of orthodontics was carrying a uke; I prevailed on her to take it out. It was equipped with an amp pickup, and had, strangely, no soundhole. She started playing a simple song, something like “This Little Light of Mine,” with uplifting lyrics and only 3 chords. I found her key and strummed along. One of her friends took out a trumpet and played a soft accompaniment, while the third kid sang harmony. At the end of the song, they packed up and headed toward the boat rental.

    It was a $5.82 day. As I headed home past the fountain, I could hear the plink-a-plink of a ukulele wafting across the water.

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