The park, frankly, looked unkempt.\u00a0 There were stands of Michaelmas daisies slowly browning in the sun.\u00a0 A bud-bearing branch of the wood anemone was snapped and hanging down, and a light breeze scattered fallen leaves across the asphalt paths and into the gutters.\u00a0 A large clump of jewelweed, yellow-orange flowers already wilted, should have been pulled up weeks ago.\u00a0 A new pest, pokeweed, has growth through the dog roses and started to produce its toxic purple berries.\u00a0 If the Central Park Conservancy doesn\u2019t attend to the pokeweed now, in future they will attend to nothing else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A solo amplified guitarist picked out a Spanish classic; either he just began his set or no one was tipping today.\u00a0 I moved on, to the Norway Maple, where the old Ukrainian caricaturist was setting up his easel, chairs, pads, paints and signage \u2013 this took him close to an hour.\u00a0 The young Ukrainian caricaturist, with his wife, came much later, set up quickly, and was leaning against the fence, smoking a cigarette, when a man came by and put a dollar in my case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two teen-aged boys let their families head for the boathouse bathrooms, preferring to stand in the shade of the maple with me.\u00a0 When their families returned, one of the boys dug a dollar coin out of his jeans.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re good,\u201d he said, tossing it to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three Spanish girls reluctantly did a hula.\u00a0 It\u2019s not as if I forced them.\u00a0 After 1 verse of \u201cThe Hukilau Song,\u201d I gathered my leis and set them free.\u00a0 One of them gave me a quarter.\u00a0 Shortly afterward, a man leaned over my case and carefully stacked a quarter, dime, nickel and 5 pennies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A tall woman, walking by, danced the hula to the delight of\nher friends. The caricaturist\u2019s wife observed,\n\u201cEveryone is happy when it\u2019s free.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A man, walking quickly, tossed me a dollar.\u00a0 I only saw him as he zoomed down the path.\u00a0 \u201cThanks,\u201d I called after him.\u00a0 He waved acknowledgement without turning around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then, no one.\u00a0 For the next 10 minutes, not a single person passed by. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The old man was sleeping; the younger smoked another\ncigarette. \u201cThis is boring,\u201d said the wife. \u201cLet\u2019s go to Atlantic City.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou tell me this in the morning, not now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I played \u201cI Can\u2019t Give You Anything But Love\u201d to the trees\nand sky, then noticed very near me a young dark-haired girl of 14 or so, listening intently. I sang the rest of the song to her. \u201cDo you know that song?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She shook her head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut you play the uke?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA little.\u201d I handed\nher the uke and she strummed a basic chord pattern. Her adult relatives showed up, so she handed\nthe uke back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHave you got time for a hula dance?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She did.\u00a0 I put a lei around her neck. Turned toward her so she could follow my fingering, I played, \u201cI Wonder Where My Little Hula Girl Has Gone.\u201d \u00a0 At this point grandpa got into the act, dancing a hula of his own.\u00a0 At the end of the dance, he waved the parents away, as if to say, \u201cI got this,\u201d and laid down a fiver. It was a satisfying way to end my set. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"