Zing! at NED Fall Convention 1997

NED Fall Convention, October 1997

From: linda.bober@lkg.mts.dec.com "Linda Bober" 27-OCT-1997 16:30:29.12
Subj: Zing!'s NED adventure

Zing!'s NED adventure or an "it's a small world" story. We thought the harmonet would appreciate our Saturday evening adventure.

Zing! attended the NED convention Saturday to cheer on our NED friends. The contests were held in an auditorium in Lowell, MA. It was
a drippy, chilly, New England autumn day. There was a pretty big break between the chorus contest and the quartet finals, so we decided to risk the bad weather and walk to dinner. Unfortunately, the guy who gave us directions got us started on the wrong path. (I don't think he knew his right from his left.) We were walking in the rain getting cold and wet with no food places in sight. As we were debating what to do we noticed that we were outside of the local hospital. Having four powerful minds among us we put them to good use, realizing that hospitals have cafeterias that serve food and that it would be a good idea for us to get out of the rain as quickly as possible--since our contest is this coming weekend, and we can't afford to get sick.

Sure enough, we did find a cafeteria. As we were eating we also discussed the fact that there were probably sick people in the building that might like some music to cheer them up. We went to the maternity ward first. There were two new mothers with babies more than happy to be serenaded. The first was a sleeping little girl. She squirmed a little at the lullaby but stayed sleeping. Mom seemed very moved. The second was a very alert little boy. He looked very much older than the 20 hours that he was. He started off looking around and kicking his feet and ended up with his lids drooping by the end of "Rock-A-Bye Baby." Aaaaahhhh. The nursing staff asked us where we were an hour earlier when they were trying to get their one screamer to sleep.

Next was the main floor. We started in one room. After our rousing opener we did "If I Had My Way." The gentleman was trying to sing along, but it was a little out of his range. ;-) By the time we finished we had gathered a crowd outside the door. Most of the crowd was from across the hall, so we went and serenaded the patient they were visiting. On our way back down the hall we were stopped outside of a third room. Someone seemed to know about the convention down the road. We offered to sing for them, too. It turned out the patient was the grandfather of one of the singers in the quartet finals. He was pretty miffed that he was stuck in a hospital bed instead of
cheering his grandson on. When we finally figured out which quartet (so that we could cheer extra loudly on the grandfather's behalf) we discovered that two of us know the singer's mom. The whole family appreciated that we were there. It made it seem like the grandfather wasn't quite so removed from the convention.

With all the good emotions from the performances we went back to the auditorium for the finals. What a great feeling! Of course, everybody thought we were weird for going to a hospital cafeteria for supper. (But after all, we are Zing!) Later that night we met up with the grandson--with his fourth-place ribbon around his neck--and told him about the hospital. After the shock of finding out (his family hadn't told him) that his grandfather was in the hospital he looked at us with a dumbfounded look and said that it would never have occurred to him to go into a hospital if there were no other food options around. But after meeting the grandfather we knew that that was what we were supposed to have done--a true Zing! moment!

We hope that the grandfather is doing well. We're quite sure he's beaming over his grandson's accomplishment.

Linda Bober
Tenor, Zing! quartette
Tenor, Women of Note chorus
Harmony, Inc.
bober@jamin.enet.dec.com