At the Tone, the Time Lady Will Be Gone
I was fairly young when some unsuspecting adult thought it would be a good idea to explain to me that I could always get the current time by dialing POPCORN.
I proceeded to abuse that information by dialing the number every five minutes to find out what time it was — among other things. I figured if the Time Lady was so all knowing about the time of day, she might have the answers to other questions as well. What can I say, I was young and Google hadn’t been invented yet.
I never did get any other answers from the Time Lady. She stuck to the time with a zen-like focus. In retrospect I think she might have what we now call “obsessive compulsive”.
Over the years I lost track of the Time Lady. Recently there hasn’t been much need to call her. In fact, I was sort of surprised to discover that she was still around and giving out the time to anyone who called — but not for much longer.
This week AT&T announced that the Time Lady’s time has run out. After September, California residents will no longer be able to pick up the phone and dial the time. AT&T is discontinuing the service, citing failing equipment, the need for additional phone numbers, and, presumably, a general lack of use, as reasons.
Everyone who hears this story is just a little bit sad, and yet none of the people I’ve talked to about this can remember the last time they dialed the time. There’s just no reason to. These days nearly every phone displays the time without having to dial a number.
Increasingly consumer electronics devices are setting the time without human intervention. While the Time Lady still had a place in a world of VCR’s blinking 12:00, DVRs get the time through the cable or satellite service. Even my Roku Soundbridge sets the time using the network time protocol — the same method most PC’s use to set their system clocks.
California and Nevada are the last two states where the telephone time is still available — and now California is pulling the plug. Nevada is not far behind. According to yesterday’s LA Times article, phone companies are discontinuing the service once the current generation of time machines have reached the end of their service cycles. You read that right, the machine that plays the Time Lady’s voice is called a “time machine”. I suppose this means the time machine technicians are losing their jobs as well.
AT&T indicates the change will free up 300,000 phone numbers in Southern California alone. I’d hate get one of those numbers. Having one of the former time phone numbers will probably be something like being one of the original time operators from the 1920’s. When the telephone time service was first introduced there really were live operators standing by waiting to read the time to callers.
The customers who are assigned these newly available numbers are certain to be pestered by occasional calls from anonymous time seekers — likely the same people who won’t be aware of the switch to digital broadcast television when that happens.
If you live in California you have a few weeks left to call the Time Lady. On midnight September 19th she’ll give her final performance.
Technorati Tags: Time, Time Lady, AT&T
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9 Comment(s) so far
1. Jim wrote on August 30th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Hasn’t the weather lady been long gone?
I seem to remember that it was 442-1212, but I could be wrong.
Also, it’s pretty obvious that the first move by the Killer Robots will be to give everybody the wrong time.
2. Kassia wrote on August 30th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
As a young, impressionable girl, one of my thrills in life was to call the Time Lady and get an “exactly”. It was like I won the lottery. Except, well, you know.
3. Jim wrote on August 31st, 2007 at 9:11 am
Say, that reminds me:
Perhaps my favorite bit of commercial production ever for KFSR was when I got “The time is 3:00 . . . exactly” into a spot for a Three O’Clock show at The Star Palace.
I actually recorded that at 3 AM when I was doing one of those board op shifts at Y-94.
4. will wrote on September 5th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
At the sound of the tone I will miss that lady, although I haven’t called her in 20 years.
5. The Bi-Weekly ‘Loper - September 9, 2007 | Medialoper wrote on September 9th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
[…] At the Tone, the Time Lady Will Be Gone - But not forgotten. Ok, probably forgotten, as well. […]
6. Anonymous wrote on September 22nd, 2007 at 2:03 pm
I called her september 19th, the next day she was gone.
7. John Fredericks wrote on September 23rd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
I guess we wont have anything to call in case there is a power failure and we need to reset our clocks… Oh well.
8. P wrote on February 18th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Imagine MY surprise when I found out she was not there anymore. I believe that I was trying to set my car clock or something and knew my cell phone clock was a little behind.
You can bet the farm that I almost swerved into oncoming traffic when I found out it was discontinued. Talk about the end of any era. I proceeded to text several of my friends who were equally traumatized. Well, as you put it. Just a little bit sad.
9. Melissa wrote on March 18th, 2008 at 7:36 am
When I dialed up the Time Lady last month and discovered my childhood time friend was discontinued I gasped. But I got over it. Your article let me know why she is gone and why. Now I can tell my cousin who was wondering where she went too. We used to call the Time Lady together on our grandparents rotary phone just because we could. I’d hate to the be the sucker who gets one of those time numbers. But oh the fun you could have if you had a sense of humor about it.