An evening with Whitney

I was studying in Singapore, doing O Levels when I was 17 years old. I was staying at a hostel, with 2 public telephones. Yes, this was the pre-mobile phone days. Half of the time these phones were used by the residents, no doubt including those who missed home.

I was staying in a room at the top of the building on the 4th floor. I had a roommate, whom thankfully I got along well with. There was no lift or escalator and so that meant I had to use 4 flights of stairs to get to the 1st floor.

I was a big fan of Whitney Houston and so when there was a chance to win a pair of tickets to her concert, I decided to go for it. It was quite simple but required lots of patience and attention: call the radio station when they played a snippet of her song (they made it obvious that it was time to call).

I tried many times (my roommate recalled my sheer determination), listening to my Walkman, rushing down with my phonecard and ran along (and sometimes jumped over a few steps!) the stairs to the phones. Sometimes I couldn't even use the phone because there were some people using them (and at times, there was queue!) and sometimes the call never got through (i.e. someone else got through to the radio station first).

However, one night, things went right: I ran the moment I heard the cue. Nobody was using the phone. I rang and kept using the redial button whenever I heard an engaged tone. Suddenly I was through! Woohoo!

I invited my sister, who was in Malaysia, to come down and attend the concert with me. It was held at the Kallang Indoor Stadium. At first, it felt a little stuffy there (which later on I learned that the aircond was switched off so as not to adversely affect Whitney's voice) but later on I didn't feel it as I was enjoying the performance. It wasn't the kind of concert where people stood up and danced away. People generally sat down, sang along and grinned a lot :)

It was a memorable adventure for me. RIP Whitney and thanks for the memory and songs throughout the decades.