I can hear Colin\u2019s amped guitar from Cherry Hill. He is playing Al Green\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m So in Love with\nYou\u201d (1972). As I approach, he says, \u201cTen\nminutes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’d just started to set up when I heard him lament, \u201cI\u2019ve popped a string.\u201d\u00a0 His 10 minutes was now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Half way through my first 30 minutes, a man started filming \u201cUkulele\nLady.\u201d I gave him a full-face rendition,\nafter which he flashed the thumbs-up. \u201cOk,\u201d\nI said to him. \u201cYou\u2019ve got yours, now it\u2019s\nyour turn to do a hula dance for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo, no,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s only fair,\u201d I said, but nevertheless he walked away. At my first break, my case was empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Things picked up after that. \nA photographer gave me $2 for a picture. \nA woman off the bench added another dollar. Two Chinese teenagers, having listened to me\nsing during their lunch, dropped over a dollar in change as they left the fountain\narea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Israeli man, his son on his shoulders, stopped to listen. The little boy did not want to hula, but his\nmother did. His father, unable to\nconvince his son to get down, put a lei on and joined in anyway, for another\n$2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A young couple from Los Angeles stopped to hula, then walked away.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dancing toward me from the bench came a giant of a man, 6-4 or better and 350 pounds.\u00a0 He took a lei and hula-ed gracefully, his eyes cast skyward, as he swayed to \u201cThe Hukilau Song.\u201d\u00a0 I started to introduce the second verse; he interrupted, \u201cI know, I know.\u201d\u00a0 At the lyric, \u201ckanes and wahinis sing a song about love,\u201d he covered his heart with a soulful gesture and brought his dance to an end.\u00a0 He pulled 2 bills out of his wallet, a single and a fiver, then gave me the single.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 20-something couple from Toronto threw a dollar coin in my\ncase. \u201cHave you got time for a hula today?\u201d They did, after which the woman reached into\nher purse and tossed me another dollar coin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After my 90 minutes, I counted out $9.31, plus a coin that\nappears to be a 5 Turkish kuru piece, .05 lira, worth less than a penny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"