By Diana Dopfel

Park Street in Boston is home to a myriad of street musicians. It is a bustling crossroad for the T, where the Green Line connects with the Red and Orange lines. As such, it is a place packed with commuters, students and tourists — all serenaded by the sweet music of Boston’s subway musicians.

Every subway musician has a story. Bill “the Tuba Man’s” story is hardly unique, and like all other performers, it cannot be discerned through only casually hearing his song.

As a subway musician, Bill would put his music aside long enough to speak to any passerby. As a homeless man on the streets of Boston, however, few would acknowledge his presence — let alone hear what he might have to say.

It is in Park Street where you may hear Bill “the Tuba Man,” a retired Boston native who plays show tunes and patriotic marches on his shiny golden tuba — a man whose present musical life has roots from his unfortunate past.

This man, with a face etched deep with age and hardship, was a music education major at Boston University, who then went on to receive his Masters degree at a city college. He taught music for nine years, was a school guidance counselor and traveled the country giving high school presentations. You might then wonder how this musician could have possibly ended up on the streets of Boston — now homeless for a year and a half.

The truth is that it can happen to anyone.

Without a place to sleep, without friends or family to go to for help, or without something as simple as a bathroom to use, a homeless person is truly lost. According to Bill “the Tuba Man,” one of the worst aspects of this homelessness was the complete lack of eye contact. Nobody looks at a homeless person, he says. “In fact, most people try their best to ignore them. A homeless man is nobody,” says Bill.

This is why when Bill found his way back to the world through spiritual help from a Reverend of Homeless Ministry and others, he took to the subway as a musician.

“What homelessness has taught me — you learn what’s important and what’s not,” Bill said. “I had the clothes on my back, period. Nothing else. I didn’t even have my tuba.”

As a subway musician today, Bill “the Tuba Man” is able to give something back to the people who once did nothing but avoid him. He is now the object of attention and entertainment. You can’t go too far without hearing the bass notes of his tuba emanating throughout the T station. He is a performer and has made a life for himself by playing in the subway.

“I’m retired, making a ton of money, having a ball,” Bill said.

Yet Bill will never forget when he was not on the streets as a musician, but simply as a man without a home. Although he now has a warm place to sleep each night, the street, in a sense, remains his home.

The difference is that today he gives something back to the city of Boston through his music, rather than just taking the cold pavement as his bed. Today, he brings music to the ears of thousands. And although he still sits in the subway, he says he is accompanied by three things: his tuba, his music and his past — a story that many subway musicians share. A story that he tells a little of through every song he plays.

That is, if you stop long enough to listen.