A dragon lives forever but not so little boys. Painted wings and giants’ rings make way for other toys . . . Oh! Puff the magic dragon.

Sitting next to Zeke’s Coffee stand, the street musician known as Merdalf puts down his guitar as he finishes the Peter, Paul and Mary folk classic about the loss of childhood innocence and an ageless dragon. He reaches into his case and glances up toward a wide-eyed little boy and his mother, who is pushing a younger daughter in a stroller around the Waverly farmers’ market. “How about a balloon?” he asks with a grin, now reaching for a small hand pump. “Let me get you a balloon.”

The sun is smiling on the 69-year-old busker this morning, but the previous weekend, an unexpected spring snow had curtailed his typical three-to-four-hour set.

“I lasted two songs. My fingers couldn’t move,” he explains. “I’m here every Saturday no matter what, though. I play the JFX farmers’ market on Sundays, too, but this is year-round and it’s different, you know? It’s a neighborhood thing. You see the same folks every week. There are people here I’ve known go from single, to married, to having kids, to I’m performing for their kids. A few children, I’ve even taught how to play. Someone called me the Mayor of Waverly and sometimes I feel like that.”

The softhearted Mayor of Waverly’s all-ages playlist includes Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, and Beatles’ tunes like “Hey Jude,” “Yesterday,” and “With a Little Help From My Friends,” which he first heard growing up in rural England. “Easy songs,” he says. Others, he’s penned himself since he began coming to the popular market here about a dozen years ago.

Not that he was given the key to the city right away. At first, since he had no permit, the manager of the farmers’ market told him he could only play on the sidewalk. He hadn’t been performing long at that point, having just learned to play guitar when he was in his early 50s at a drug rehab for veterans. He’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the VA hospital at Perry Point years before and this wasn’t his first trip to rehab.

“My girlfriend had dumped me and she was not taking me back,” he recalls. “And a guy who is in rehab with me, he looks at me and says, ‘Take this guitar, man. You’re already writing poetry,’ and he showed me some chords. Then I wrote a song called, ‘All My Life.’”

Born in Baltimore, Steven Johnson spent most of his childhood overseas, where his serviceman father, with whom he had a very difficult relationship, was stationed. Moving back to Baltimore for his last year of high school in the early ’70s proved a culture shock, including experiencing racism unlike anything he’d gone through in England. He left school and joined the Navy, but was honorably discharged after 15 months when both parties agreed it was for the best. It was a challenging coming of age. (His stage name is a mashup of Merlin and Gandalf, reflecting his childhood fascination with King Arthur and alchemy, in his case, turning pain and sorrow into song.)

“These things stay with you, so I wrote a song called, ‘Heal Myself.’ I’m going to help myself so I can sleep at night. I’m going to heal myself. So love can come along. So many songs are cathartic and some of the songs are happy playful songs. Some songs I write are message songs.”

Since he began playing and performing, life has stabilized, he says. Years of therapy, meditation, and spiritual and philosophical readings have helped, too. A few years ago, he performed at the Creative Alliance’s Night of 1,000 Dylans—“All Along the Watchtower” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” remain two of his favorites to perform. He’s recorded a CD with a Baltimore producer and has been featured in a couple of local TV commercials. He also performs elsewhere from time to time, including along The Avenue in Hampden and York Road in Towson.

“To tell you the truth, if you had caught me 15 years ago and said then I was going to be playing guitar and making money at it—and I don’t do it for the money, that’s not important—I would have called you crazy. I had no thought that I was going to do this. No aspirations. I’ve just been following the thread since that day in rehab. You know what I mean? You follow the thread. You just keep following it.”

Five things to eat, drink, see, hear, and do with your Charm City weekend.

 EAT

April 21: Well Crafted Pizza’s 1st Birthday Bash

Union Craft Brewery, 1700 Union Ave. 7-10 p.m.  

We’ve never met a pizza we didn’t like, but Well Craft Pizza takes pies to a whole new level. After revamping a 1949 Dodge Ram truck from a farm in Alabama (complete with a 1,000-degree wood-fire oven and four built-in draft taps), these mobile pizza purveyors decided to hit the Baltimore food scene, serving their cheesy creations at food festivals, breweries, pop-ups, and catering events around town. People instantly fell in love with their creative combinations like Radical Radish, Spinach Chorizo, Chana Masala, and dessert pies like S’mores Please. On Friday, the Best of Baltimore-winning pie-makers will celebrate their one-year anniversary with a bash full of dollar slices, pints of Union Craft beer, and live music at the local brewery.

 DRINK

April 22: Monument City Brewing Company Grand Opening

Monument City Brewing Company, 1 North Haven St., 12-7 p.m. 

Brothers Ken and Matt Praay started Monument City Brewing by taking growlers bar to bar in hopes of spreading the word about their Maryland-inspired 51 Rye. Before long, that very beer began to take over taps around town, and now, three years later, they have finally opened a place of their own in Highlandtown. On Saturday, catch the grand opening of the new space, which features a taproom with communal seating, rustic exposed brick walls, a Ping Pong table, and their signature custom wood tap handles by next-door neighbor Mark Supik and Co. Sample snacks from The Local Oyster and other local eateries, listen to live music from The Manly Deeds, and drink down their growing selection of brews. We’ll certainly cheers to that! 

 SEE

April 21-23: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus

Royal Farms Arena, 201 W. Baltimore St., Times Vary. $23-93.

This weekend, join “The Greatest Show on Earth” for what may be their final curtain call. After 146 years of performances, the human-cannonball-ing, lion-taming, tightrope-walking exposition is coming to an end. While the circus has become somewhat controversial with animal rights activists in recent years, this spectacle will go down in history as a family tradition, one that captivated audiences of all ages with a score of fearless daredevil stunts and a cast of charming characters. 

 HEAR

April 22: WTMD’s Brews & Bands

1 Olympic Pl., Towson. 12-4 p.m. $30. 

WTMD is on quite the winning streak. From expanded First Thursdays concerts to epic live lunches to a new children’s concert series, the local radio station is embracing its love of Baltimore and bringing us awesome events along the way. This weekend, the station is joining forces with 15 of our favorite local breweries for unlimited tastings and tunes at their Towson studio. Beloved beer makers like The Brewer’s Art, Heavy Seas, Flying Dog, and Diamondback will be onsite with everything from tropical saisons to rich double IPAs. But no WTMD event would be complete without an emphasis on local music so while you soak up the suds, jam out to live music from gypsy jazz groups Ultrafaux and Hot Club of Baltimore as well as rabblerousing rock-and-rollers PLRLS.

 DO

April 23: Baltimore Farmers’ Market & Bazaar Opening Day

E. Saratoga St. & Holiday St., 7 a.m.-12 p.m. Free. 

With 48 farms, 45 vendors, and an average of more than 120,000 attendees each year, Maryland’s largest producers-only market has become a Sunday staple in Charm City for the past 40 years. Nestled under the Jones Falls Expressway, the beloved weekend ritual is a vibrant, fragrant microcosm of Baltimore—teeming with crisp fruits and seasonal vegetables, craft beer and local wine, ice-cold crabs and farm-fresh meat, and, of course, the buttery smell of breakfast biscuits wafting from the grill of Blacksauce Kitchen. Back for its 40th year, don’t miss the chance to hawk local treats from the likes of Hex Ferments, Zeke’s Coffee, The Mushroom Stand, and newcomers like Ekiben and The Baltimore Whiskey Company.