A Fly On The Wall, December 13, 2013

Dream Calling

by Jim Murchison

@JimMurchison

A friend of mine died this year. He was not a close friend. I knew him briefly when I was fundraising for the NAC where he also worked. What reminded me of him was when I was at The Sound of Music. He had done an extraordinary thing while he was working there and looking at the list of sponsors that have contributed to keeping the NAC operating reminded me of that. 

Norm had made a call one evening pitching sponsorship of the orchestra. An animated individual possessing a pronounced British accent and a passion for music, he usually received polite responses even when they were, “No I can’t right now.” On this particular night however, the person on the other end shared Norm’s passion and asked one question, “How much would you like?” Norm’s response was, "I would like a million dollars, but I realize that that is not possible for most people." 

The response back brought a lot of excitement to the little room. “Okay, I think I can do that.”  Of course there are a lot of people that just love putting on telemarketers and nobody was sure it was really going to happen; but it did and Norm who never had a lot of money himself was a celebrity and a hero for a while.

So here’s to Norm who reminded me that though we should never expect a miracle, sometimes miraculous things happen. You keep trying and dare to ask sometimes you might find that needle in the haystack.