A beautiful Saturday in New York brought out the crowds, foreign and domestic. The acrobats had taken over the western stairs, with their loud exhortations to make noise. The entire plaza teemed with people enjoying the day, a very welcoming sight as seen from the eastern stairs, and for a moment I thought it might be possible to coexist with the shouting and clapping of the acrobats, but no. I was content to visit my maple tree, still leafy overhead. The baby mulberries were dripping with bright red, hard-skinned berries, while the enormous parent across the path bore no fruit.<\/p>\n
A woman walked by and started me out with a dollar. Moments later, 2 people on bikes stopped to take pictures of The Boathouse Restaurant, and the yellow mums around the railing reflected in the lake. Before remounting their bikes, the woman asked for a picture with me. I put a lei around her neck; he gave me a dollar.<\/p>\n
Two toddlers bopped by, put on leis and danced ($2); two young women did not dance ($2).<\/p>\n
A girl and her mother told me they had lived in Hawaii for 8 years. \u201cI can play the ukulele,\u201d the girl said. I handed it to her and she plucked out a tune. \u201cI can play the ukulele behind my head.\u201d The girl wrestled my uke into position, but she could not play her song. \u201cThis should be higher,\u201d she said, plucking the G-string.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tuned differently than your soprano uke; it\u2019s an octave lower,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s why it doesn\u2019t work.\u201d She handed the uke back to me, turned and walked away, followed by her mother, who waved \u201cAloha\u201d without turning around.<\/p>\n
A 70-something stopped to hear a few bars of \u201cGive Me a Ukulele,\u201d and he gave me a dollar. I asked him what had grabbed him, was it the song? \u201cNo,\u201d he said, \u201cit\u2019s the whole\u2026the whole presentation.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"