Another week has passed since I last visited the park. So, with life\u2019s obligations fast filling my calendar, despite Tuesday’s 90-degree heat, I ventured out.\u00a0 In the shade of Central Park West, half the begonias have been replaced with coleus, their thirsty green and burgundy leaves already parched.\u00a0\u00a0 The roses behind the benches struggled to produce a second crop, but those across from the so-called Peace Rock bloomed abundantly, pink and red, singles and doubles in profusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dominic, the big-bubble man, shook the soapy water from his\nhand and gave me a fist-bump. \u201cWe were\njust talking about you, me and Colin, where\u2019ve you been?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was just noon and Colin, the cowboy, wasn\u2019t there. Perhaps he had sense enough to come in from the\nsun. Many tourists, sensibly, chose cool\nmarble museums over Bethesda Fountain in this heat, but not all. My first hula dancers weren\u2019t even tourists,\nbut an au pair and her 2 young charges, a girl of 3 or so and her older brother. Brother wouldn\u2019t dance, but the girls had a\nball at the hukilau; the au pair tipped me with a fiver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A tall young woman from Montreal got through the vamp to \u201cThe\nHukilau Song,\u201d and was starting to remove her lei, when a 60-something woman\nwalking by began singing along. She knew\nthe hand motions too, so I quickly got a lei around her neck and directed the Montrealer\nto follow the older woman\u2019s lead. She\ntold me she\u2019d learned it in grade school, in 1959, when Hawaii became a state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a large group of high schoolers from Argentina,\nmany of whom danced a hula and threw money in my case, and another slightly\nless large group of scouts from Sweden, who neither danced nor donated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was relieved to get to the end of my set. I sang my last few songs to no one, and,\nprecisely at 1:30, said \u201cAloha, New York\u201d and sat down. The change was too hot to count, so I dumped it\nin the shade of my ukulele case and counted the bills, $13. I packed up the solar-powered hula girls, the\nleis, CDs and other paraphernalia, by which time I could handle the coins,\n$3.68.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI see you counting your money,\u201d the ice-cold-water man said\nwith a grin. He was hauling a cooler\nbehind him; it bounced over the uneven bricks. \n\u201cSee you tomorrow.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"