Who here had a deep relationship with ‘The Time Lady’?
Posted by turnipzzzpinrut@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 50 comments
Being latchkey and otherwise lonely, I used to call the ‘Time Lady’ frequently.
At the tone, the time will be five fifteen, and ten seconds. Beep. At the tone, the time will be five fifteen and twenty seconds. Beep
firebat_hismajesty@reddit
Where I lived the number was POPCORN so I would just sit and listen to the lady talk, the whole time wondering who decided it would be that number and why.
KitchenNazi@reddit
Was it only POP-CORN? I thought it was POP-####. Any other digits worked. I didn’t try them all though!
firebat_hismajesty@reddit
Maybe? My mom told me it was POPCORN and I never tried anything else, lol.
aran_maybe@reddit
I thought you were talking about Romana from Dr Who
Trolkarlen@reddit
Lala Ward
Comedywriter1@reddit
Ha! Me, too!
My first thought was “Well I kind of had a crush on Lalla Ward when I was a kid.”
Intrepid_Practice956@reddit
Ours was sponsored by the bank so there was about a 15 second ad for the bank, then yhe Time Lady. Or Romana 2, who knows.
dobeedeux@reddit
I wanted to be the Time Lady when I was in grade school.
Ministerof-T-C-0Doom@reddit
207-775-4321
StrictFinance2177@reddit
Jane Barbe.... One time known as the most listened to recorded voice of all time. And she still may be.
Gweveraugh@reddit
Ours was GR2-1212 (313 area code but not needed back then)
turnipzzzpinrut@reddit (OP)
Mine was a 517
No-Mud3183@reddit
Same here
ShowLasers@reddit
UL3-1212 in LA back in the day.
ogtinwhiaker@reddit
I used to trip when she said, “… exactly”
Vikinglass77@reddit
Also calling for the weather and the movies
Subject-Direction628@reddit
Never did that. But who as 10 year old girl was doing most of the housework. And cooking. Laundry.
And babysitting for the neighbours
So curious
Technical_Chemistry8@reddit
Our (Southern California) time and date was a party line. Teenagers would shout out their phone numbers between beeps and then call each other to talk and hook up.
HowDoYouSpellH@reddit
That sounds so fun!
Insightseekertoo@reddit
Honestly. I'm sorry that you felt so lonely. I never did this. I did just dial random numbers until one smart lady told me to dial 1, first. That way it showed up on the telephone bill. My parents figured it out. I was only 7 or 8 at the time. I was skipping school during that time in my life so clearly I had shit going on Psychologically.
I was obsessed with time, though. I had to know when people were arriving home so I could "act" like I was returning from school on time. LOL.
turnipzzzpinrut@reddit (OP)
No worries, I got super committed to benign “prank / random calling” at roughly 12 and no one in mid-Michigan was bored in the early 90s. I was calling and asking dumb questions
SufficientOpening218@reddit
she was wonderful. always there for me!
turnipzzzpinrut@reddit (OP)
Original ride-or-die!
sysaphiswaits@reddit
It was a male voice where I lived. I’ve actually called the number a few times in the last few years to see if I’m connected to anything.
It did not.
Chiccheshirechick@reddit
Ha ha … I remember that as we had something similar in the UK We had the “ operator “ who connected calls and we always used to call her from the pub on NYE to wish her a happy new year ! Good times !
BoopTheCoop@reddit
2834321! I can still hear the tones as I mentally dial them…
No-Clue4432@reddit
Wow! This reminds me of all of the time I spent bored as a kid.
SausageSmuggler21@reddit
When we got call waiting, I'd use it for my sneaking out. My friend and I would have a set time. I'd call the time lady. He'd call me. No ringing phones, and we'd know it was go time!
meatwads_sweetie@reddit
Yes! I totally forgot about this! We always called Time!
ParticularDance496@reddit
Ours was time and temp. In Gettysburg at that time you only had to dial 4-1212
groovynermal@reddit
459-1212
ranchoparksteve@reddit
Maybe I should have had that relationship. There’s not a manual-set clock in my house within 10 minutes of the correct time. One is an hour and 15 minutes off.
FormerCollegeDJ@reddit
Interesting bit of trivia that ties to something else of interest to some GenXers:
The "time lady" was Jane Barbe. She was the mother of David Barbe, a musician and record producer who was the bassist and secondary songwriter in Bob Mould's second band Sugar in the first half of the 1990s. The younger Barbe has produced most of the Drive-By Truckers discography. He also has been a music business professor at the University of Georgia for a number of years.
dingolishious@reddit
I still use the local time number for my rewards club ID at various stores. It doesn't quite work at pharmacies, but it's great at the grocery store. The ACE hardware is the only one that looked at it and was confused. They didn't actually care, but it made how they processed the transaction slightly more difficult so I stopped because I like them.
MozzieKiller@reddit
You don’t use 867-5309 like the rest of us? /s
916Buckeye@reddit
You dialed popcorn to get the time and date.
heldaway@reddit
118!
crone_Andre3000@reddit
I remember calling the operator...I also remember party lines
Plastic-Sentence9429@reddit
I can't remember the number for time, but if you dialed 799-0000, you could call the aliens. Pretty sure it was some king of calibration tone for phone techs, but it was just never-ending high-to-low pitch oscillation that sounded creepy.
More_Law6245@reddit
I once had to do a quality thing for work where I needed to dub and overlay the Time Lady recording over an incident recording. I had to listen to the Time Lady for over eight hours to ensure the integrity of the of the dub. If I don't hear the Time Lady's voice again for the rest of my life, it won't be too soon.
MozzieKiller@reddit
She’s still there! +1 (303) 499-7111 Or the Hawai’i version at +1 (808) 335-4363
ShowLasers@reddit
Was just bleeps and bloops when I called.
turnipzzzpinrut@reddit (OP)
Thank you. The Hawaii number sounds more like my memory than Colorado, but both are so soothing. That metronome click was my first meditation
Giamatt22@reddit
To this day whenever someone says “It’s 5:15”, I always follow with “and 20 seconds”
JollyGiant573@reddit
6372121 the time is 4:15 the temperature is 68 degrees.
ChartanTheDM@reddit
I thought I was in r/doctorwho for a minute.
maroongrad@reddit
yep.
I think there was Time and Temperature.
OtisPimpBoot@reddit
I used to be obsessed with making sure that my watch and alarm clock were synched to the exact seconds with the time phone line. I think I called it at least once a week to set them.
dragon1n68@reddit
We had a Whitney bank phone number for the time.
mwithington@reddit
I remember dialing POPCORN to get the time.