After more than a week, I made my way back to the park. \u00a0At the entrance, the pink begonias and a swath of green and white lamium were doing well, and, behind the benches, the workhorse roses, pink and red, provided great color.\u00a0 At the Imagine Mosaic, one of the platoon guitarists was between songs.\u00a0 He looked up as I passed.\u00a0 \u201cI got the same shirt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the original Tom Selleck, Magnum PI,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Under the gaze of Daniel Webster, another cloud of spent clover rose above the lawn.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Center stage was mine.\u00a0 I\u2019d barely tuned up when 2 tweens stopped to hula.\u00a0 In quick succession, another girl of about the same age, from DC, wanted to hula, then 2 cousins from Idaho took a turn.\u00a0 I had $5 in my case before I came home from the hukilau, and started my set in earnest.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A teenage girl walked by and dropped 60 cents.\u00a0 She turned out to be one of the few today who did not<\/em> hula.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A girl of 9 or 10 showed some interest, but when I asked if she had time for a hula, she shook her head no, only to return a short while later to say, \u201cI changed my mind.\u201d\u00a0 She was from Puerto Rico.\u00a0 She danced with a rocking motion, laughing all the while her mom took pictures.\u00a0 For a change of pace, I sang \u201cMy Little Grass Shack.\u201d\u00a0 Mom contributed $2.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A young teen danced and walked away.\u00a0 She came back with 4 quarters.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A group of 10 kids talked each other into a group dance.\u00a0 I tore open a new package of leis to accommodate them.\u00a0 One of them, a slender girl named Hallie, was pushed to the front, where she led the group in a sinewy interpretation of \u201cThe Hukilau Song.\u201d\u00a0 She said she was from Colombia.\u00a0 \u201cThe country, not South Carolina.\u201d\u00a0 Another few dollars floated into my case.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A Russian man and his family were enchanted by my solar-powered hula girls.\u00a0 \u201cHow much?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cFive dollars,\u201d I told him.\u00a0 He started to bargain, but I held firm, and showed him the plastic shell that would protect it in his luggage.\u00a0 He picked up the pink doll, which was broken.\u00a0 I took it from him and showed his son how it worked, while the man contemplated the green or the yellow.\u00a0 By this time, the enchantment had faded.\u00a0 \u201cIf you really like these, you can probably get 2 for 5 on the internet,\u201d I told him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He laughed and said, \u201cThank you for your honesty.\u201d\u00a0 They walked off, but the man soon came back with a dollar for my time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A young girl sat at the edge of the fountain with a book.\u00a0 \u201cHave you got time for a hula today?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMaybe later,\u201d she said, \u201cwith my sister.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A girl from Nashville went to the hukilau, and a short time later 2 more dancers from Nashville did the same.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A Mexican boy danced at his mother\u2019s insistence.\u00a0 Behind her camera, she swayed to the music, while the boy rather woodenly flapped his arms.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In addition to the saffron-robed begging Buddhists, who shove prayer flags in peoples\u2019 hands, Bethesda Fountain is also home to teenage boys selling candy for playground equipment.\u00a0 One of them bopped up to me and said, \u201cI got lots of change for you, bud.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Five girls from Staten Island stopped to hula.\u00a0 \u201cWhat fun,\u201d one of them said, taking a single from her purse.\u00a0 Perhaps some of the others had also made donations, but I didn\u2019t notice, because the young girl who had been reading returned with her sister.\u00a0 Each of them had a dollar for me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Toward the end of my set, the sisters came back with their mom.\u00a0 \u201cI didn\u2019t get a chance to take a picture,\u201d she said.\u00a0 I put leis back on them and posed for the shot, after which mom put another dollar in my case.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I counted $25.02, my second best take of the season. \u00a0Judged by the number of hulas danced, however, it was an all-time high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"