In the summer after my sophomore year in high school, my friend Jim Wolvington and I had a plan.

We were going to work hard and make a lot of money painting houses.

We placed a classified ad in the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press and got a few nibbles. But pretty soon, problems emerged with our business plan. And Jim got a job at a little marina on Lake Champlain.

After confiding to my parents that I was afraid of wasting the whole summer, it was decided that I would fly out to California from Vermont and spend a few weeks with my sister's family. Maybe I would get a summer job out there.

When I arrived at LAX, I actually stopped to talk when a Hare Krishna hailed me. He must have spotted me as someone who just fell off the maple syrup truck.

I listened and accepted one of his books. But when he mentioned that it was customary to offer a donation, I promptly handed the book back and strode off toward a slightly wiser future.

Anyway, I found myself thinking about that the other day. A teenage con man dressed a bit like a clown spoke to me outside the STA Plaza. I don't remember exactly what he said. I wasn't really listening.

This kid's act made 1970s-style mimes seem jaded in comparison.

As I approached my bus to climb aboard, he said to my back "You dropped it...you dropped it!"

I turned around. He greeted me with the sort of fake-beatific expression that used to make people want to punch hippies.

"Your smile!" he said.

I gave him a decidedly uptight look that apparently persuaded him not to ask me for spare change. (From my seat inside the bus, I watched him pester other people, though.)

I thought about that Krishna from so long ago, and about how much I preferred his schtick.

At least he was selling something. Sure it might have been a bogus, cultlike spirituality. But even that is more substantial than free-range gimmee-some-money goofiness.

Out my bus window, I saw some hulking guy look like he was about to belt Clown Boy. And lo and behold, I found my smile.

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