{"id":144,"date":"2014-05-09T22:10:26","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T22:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/?p=144"},"modified":"2014-05-13T11:09:43","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T11:09:43","slug":"rainy-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mrukulele.com\/?p=144","title":{"rendered":"Rainy Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

All of NY seemed to be inside a cloud today. Droplets hung in the air, so I wasn\u2019t so much rained on as rained into as I walked to the park. The top of the towers on Central Park South were hidden in fog. I saw an umbrella, then a second and a third, but still most people, like me, were ignoring the weather. The forecast, after all, was for a chance<\/em> of showers. With any luck, I thought, it will clear, and, if not, I still will have gotten out of the house for a while. And in the back of my mind I thought that harps and dulcimers don\u2019t do well in the rain, so center stage may at last be mine today. And so it was.<\/p>\n

The choir was at it in the tunnel. Rainy days are good for them because people flock to the tunnel for shelter. At the far end of the fountain a man was hitting a stick against a wooden block. Was this another busker? Having never seen him before, I decided not and set up. Within minutes a school group came by. \u201cDoes this group have time for a hula?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re middle-schoolers,\u201d said a teacher. \u201cGood luck getting them to do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a little cajoling, a group of three donned leis and made a mess of it. \u201cWait a minute,\u201d I addressed the teacher. \u201cYou can hula, can\u2019t you? You\u2019ve got to show them.\u201d I put a lei around her neck and we started again. She showed them all right, with all the right moves. The kids squealed and more of them rushed forward to put on a lei and dance. By the end, we\u2019d done three verses and 7-8 kids had danced. \u201cWhere are we going?\u201d I shouted. \u201cTo the Hukilau,\u201d came the response.<\/p>\n

Gathering up the leis and spreading them out for the next dancers, I saw that somebody or bodies had dropped a quarter and a penny in my case. The knock-knock of the wooden block was audible behind me. For the next two songs, \u201cUkulele Lady,\u201d and \u201cHonolulu Eyes,\u201d I tried to ignore it, but it was just too annoying. I\u2019d got my time on center stage, but it was a hollow victory. I could feel the aloha spirit draining from me, so I packed up and moved to my spot on the path, which had the advantage of being under a tree, out of the rain, and out of earshot of the block-knocker.<\/p>\n

Very few people walked by; I was pretty much alone. I took the opportunity to practice a new song, \u201cDown among the Sheltering Palms,\u201d playing it over and over, working through the chord changes. It\u2019s been said that you have to play a song 10,000 times before you know it, so I still have a long way to go. After an hour, with 26 cents to show for it, I packed up and went home. Going out on a day like today maybe wasn’t such a good idea after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All of NY seemed to be inside a cloud today. Droplets hung in the air, so I wasn\u2019t so much …
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