Posts Tagged ‘The Hukilau Song’
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Record High Temps
0October 20, 2016 by admin
The temperature in Central Park hovered above 80. The hearty dog roses are still going strong, and the more delicate pink variety, like the gay divorcee, was enjoy a second spring. Little fuzzy fingers of magnolia pointed to the sun.
The cowboy nodded me to my spot; he was playing “Crackling Rosie.”
To my right a half dozen teenagers were crowded around the one who held the cardboard sign for Jesus. Another kid walked by me with a soprano ukulele in a cloth case. “Whatcha got there?” said I.
We talked uke. He told me he was a beginner, and that he played “worship” music.
“That’s great,” I said, “just not here, not while I’m here.”
“Aloha.”
An early teen made the first donation of the day, a pocketful of change, mostly dimes. A mom with her own early teen daughters did the hula while the girls pretended they didn’t know her. There was a Spaniard who talked about movies, and reminisced about his village cinema. An Englishman gave me a dollar for a photo.
A long, ragged line of school girls, dressed in plaid jumpers and white shirts with round collars, had earlier made their way down the path from the boathouse and around the fountain. They returned just as I finished my set. “Has this group got time for a hula today?”
The woman at the head of the line turned to a teacher behind her. The teacher assented and I was rushed by the uniformed mob. They kicked over my solar girls and grabbed the leis out of my hand. I organized them as well as possible; soon the 1st graders of the Hewitt School were dancing their way to the hukilau. I had to sing the song 3 times before every girl got a chance to wear a lei. Afterward, I discovered 2 of the leis had been torn to shreds. Some of the girls picked up the loose paper petals, stuffed them into a Coca Cola bottle cap and sent them sailing over the fountain waters. If any of the adults made a contribution, I missed it.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Crackling Rosie, Hewitt School, The Hukilau Song
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Aloha, Minnesota
0October 16, 2016 by admin
The clouds rolled over head, a gray scale of threat; it would certainly rain. There I was, nevertheless, bending down to examine a second, lone wood anemone flower. There were several anemone plants, but the backmost ones were being strangled by encroaching boneset. The deciduous trees showed more yellow than last time out, but nowhere did I see peak red. Even the maple, under which I started my set today, was still mostly green, although the baby mulberry was resplendent in autumnal berries.
A 7-year-old girl stepped up and gave me a dollar. “Have you got time for a hula today?” She nodded shyly, donned the lei and rocked rhythmically back and forth. On cue, she threw her net out into the sea and hauled in all the ama-ama. Her delighted father chipped in another $2.
By this time, I figured the cowboy was gone, so I piled everything into my case and carried it back to the fountain. A couple from Hawaii came laughing down the path. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw you,” said the woman, dropping a single. With very little coaxing, she danced to “The Hukilau Song.”
A tall, distinguished gentleman, with a large camera, checked me out from one angle, then another. Finally, he approached and asked if he could take video of me for his daughter in Argentina, who was a fan of the uke. “Of course,” I said, laying the 2 singles he proffered in my case.
An Englishman came off the bench with a buck. “Thank you,” he said.
Two women from Minnesota seemed happy to see me. We chatted for a while, then they did a languorous hula and walked off to get some pop – soda to us. “We’ll be back.”
A bicycle pack of Israelis rode in and dismounted across from me. A 20-something woman came forward with a thumbs up and a buck.
An Italian couple passed by to get to the water; they were memorable because he was dressed in workman’s clothes and she was all dolled up, with a blond wig, evening makeup, cocktail dress and high heels. On their way back, I called out, “Have you got time for a hula today?”
She did, while her boyfriend/husband peeled off 3 singles, waiting until we were done before tossing it in my case.
The women from Minnesota, Lisa and Lynn, came back with their pop and a fiver for me. Later, they sent me this video.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: The Hukilau Song
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And Here I Am
0October 8, 2016 by admin
Friday was a carbon copy of Thursday, cloudless blue skies, temperature in the 70s. Before crossing the road to the Daniel Webster statue, at the intersection of paths where a seller of prints and photographs camps out, a young woman has lately appeared. She sits on the ground and plays an electric guitar hooked up to a small amplifier. As I walked by her, a mother and daughter had stopped to listen. “I play ‘Imagine’ for you,” she told the little girl, pronouncing it with the accent on the first syllable.
The crowds were out today. Before long, I’d convinced an Australian woman to hula. Her teenage daughter wanted nothing to do with it. While mom danced, daughter walked around to the other side of the fountain. “She’s not even going to take my picture,” said mom, continuing to hula as the girl moved out of sight. Finally, she gave me a dollar, then looked around, unsure where to go next.
The bench sitters came across with a few dollars, then one of them, who had been taking my picture, pulled out his harmonica and joined me in “Give Me a Ukulele and a Ukulele Baby.”
A well-dressed Mexican woman came forward before she understood that I wanted her to dance the hula. A good sport, she let me put the lei over her head. We went to the hukilau at a moderate, dignified tempo. Her husband took pictures and gave me a buck.
On the bench, a mother nursed her baby under a white shawl. When they got up to leave, I was rewarded with $1. The dad, who had been roaming around to get a look at the big bubble man and the jazz combo in the arcade, rejoined his family near me and kicked in another single.
As usual, I ended with “Little Grass Shack.” Looking around, I saw that a woman sitting at the edge of the fountain was quietly singing along. When we got to the humahumanukunukuapua’a, she was aglow. While I packed up, she walked up to me with $2 in her hand. “My husband passed 2 years ago,” she said. “He used to sing that song to my daughter when she was a baby.” I looked up and spotted the daughter, now a young woman in her 30s; we smiled and nodded. “What are the odds,” the woman went on. “We came from Memphis and Seattle to meet in New York, and here you are.”
Category Uncategorized | Tags: Give Me a Ukulele and a Ukulele Baby, Imagine, The Hukilau Song
