The air was thick with the scent of summer roses.\u00a0 I had a Proustian recall of my boyhood home where, in summer, my mother kept the living room supplied with fresh-cut roses from the back yard.\u00a0 Summers then consisted of sticky drives to swim clubs and boarding house rentals at the Jersey shore with my cousins.\u00a0 At 9, I went to a YMCA camp for the summer, then to Boy Scout camp.\u00a0 There, at Ken-Etiwa-Pec, I picked up a uke for the time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cHi, cowboy,\u201d I said.\u00a0 He was walking away as I approached.\u00a0 Last summer, the cowboy and I both played on the same stage, and had reached a d\u00e9tente.\u00a0 He left around 12:30; I set up when he was gone.\u00a0 The other buskers were in place, the Boyd Family and Friends, the Big Bubble Man, and, new to the mix, an all green Lady Liberty on stilts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Three teenagers came by.\u00a0 \u201cHave you got time for a hula today?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes it cost anything?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cNooo,\u201d I sang out.\u00a0 One of the girls put on a lei and hula-ed to the hukilau.\u00a0 Her friends videoed the dance, then each put a dollar in my case.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A well-dressed woman of a certain age came by a little later and added another dollar.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A toddler toddled up to me, her dad close behind.\u00a0 She was coy, but I had a special baby lei for her and that did the trick.\u00a0 At the end of the dance, a crowd of people, who had gathered to see the cute hula girl, applauded.\u00a0 Dad gave me a fiver.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The mood of the park deteriorated after that.\u00a0 First, a woman showed up and started loudly digging refundable cans out of the trash.\u00a0 Later, the bearded, bare-chested homeless man climbed into the fountain and started his search for silver.\u00a0 At the same time, a kid of 8 or 9 also climbed into the water, as if it were a swimming pool.\u00a0 He had adult supervision, a man with a bike, who exerted no control.\u00a0 The kid collected copper, building stacks of pennies on the fountain\u2019s inside ledge.\u00a0 Resisting an impulse to engage with the man, or yell at the kid, I played, distracted, through to the end of my set.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I had $8.\u00a0 As I left, I walked around to the homeless man and handed him a single.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks, bud.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Aloha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"