No More Popcorn

Today, I am in mourning. My mind is numb and I'm feeling lost. Actually, I think I'm in shock.

Last night, at 2:00 a.m., while I was in blissfully slumber, California switched to Pacific Standard time. This morning, when I dutifully called the Time Lady, so I could re-set my clocks to the correct hour, I learned an awful truth: as of September 19, 2007, the Time Announcement Information Service had been discontinued -- they apologize for any inconvenience. Beep.

I hung up and dialed again. Sure enough, the Time Lady beeps no more. She's been snuffed out. Bumped off. Whacked. Iced. 86ed. Zotzed. She has gone the way of the dinosaurs, Mesopotamia, drive-in theaters, full-service gas stations, milk-men, 8-track tapes, Josie & The Pussycats lunch boxes, Sunshine Golden Raisin Bars, and three-dimensional Cracker Jack prizes (real ones, like imitation gold rings, miniature magnifying glasses and little plastic animal stand-ups, not those crappy stickers and temporary tattoos you get now-a-days). This is just wrong!

The Time Lady has been a constant in my life since I gained the dexterity and cognitive skill to dial "P-O-P-C-O-R-N" on my parents powder-blue, rotary Princess Phone. As kids, we used to listen to her for the better part of an hour, while earnestly monitoring the kitchen clock to see if it was keeping proper time. Life was much simpler then. We were easily amused. Plus we had no TV.

We also used to call the Time Lady and relay what she said to my Mom, working out in the garden. "Maaaaa!" we'd yell from the kitchen door, "It's 3:46 and 20 seconds."

"Thank you, " Mom would reply, as she nipped the spent blossoms off her rose bushes.

"Now, it's 3:46 and 30 seconds."

"Okay, thank you. That's enough."

"Now, it's 3:46 and 40 seconds."

"I said that's enough."

"Now, it's 3:46 and 50 seconds."

"Hang up the phone now!"

When I was 13 and regularly babysitting Seth and Damian -- the two demon spawn who lived across the street -- I used to call the Time Lady and pretend I was speaking to their mother. "Your Mom says you'd better go to bed right now, or she'll feed you to the dog when she gets home," I'd whisper hoarsely at them, with my hand covering the phone's mouthpiece. "She's really mad. Listen..." Then I'd hold the phone out just long enough for them to hear a snatch of Time Lady's voice. Their eyes would expand to saucer size, they'd do one of those Wile E. Coyote leg rotations, then zing down the hall to their bedroom, dive under the covers and stay there for the rest of the night. For the record, Seth and Damian were idiots. They used to eat paint chips and drink water from the gutter. Given their miscreant dispositions and low IQs, I'm certain that they are currently guests of California's penal system.

Once, on a two-week trip to Australia, I got lonely for American accents. So I called the Time Lady just to listen to someone say, "At the tone, Pacific Standard time will be..." instead of "Eat th' town, Paceefeec Steendud toyme wheel buy..." It was so nice. Just like being home, except for the whole upside-down, Southern Hemisphere thing.

What you may not know (I didn't until I Googled it, just now) is that the Time Lady began her career in 1928. Based in Chicago, she and was actually two operators, sitting in front of a clock, reading out the time every 15 seconds. (And I thought my job was boring.) In the 1940s, the Time Lady's job got automated -- the two operators were fired and replaced with a machine playing Jane Barbe's pre-recorded, isochronal recitations. It was a cutting-edge technology and a much needed service for a nation of busily forgetful people with wind-up watches. But over the years, as technology advanced, watches got batteries and AT&T saw calls to the Time Lady fall off. Cell phones and computers made the Time Lady as obsolete as my parent's rotary Princess Phone. The 40-year-old equipment supporting her outlived its intended lifespan and the company that made it stopped supplying parts. California was one of the Time Lady's last bastions. Nevada still has her, but all the other 23 states served by AT&T (now including California) have bid her a fond farewell.

Now, I'm not a Luddite by any stretch of the imagination. I like all the nifty modern gadgets we have to play with these days. I love my iPod and the 2,572 songs I carry around on it. I love that I could (were I so inclined) listen to it continuously for 6.8 days and never hear the same song twice. I love no longer having to balance pennies on the arm of a record player to listen to hideously scratched LPs. (As an aside, let me say that there is something magical about listening to a scratchy version of Billy Holiday, singing Willow Weap for Me.  Somehow, it rings more true than the immaculate, digitally re-mastered MP3 version.) I also think it is unassailably cool that I can sit on my backyard patio, writing this blog on my laptop, sending a kajillion invisible ones and zeros flying through the air to my wireless modem and heaven knows where from there.

Yes, technology and progress are good things. But there are certain niceties of old that I am sad to see tossed by the wayside -- little bygone amenities that elevated us above our rough plebeian weft into the more refined silk of social fabric: bathroom signs that read "Ladies" and "Gentlemen" instead of displaying those grotesque little stick figures; office buildings with windows you can open to breath real air; turn-down service in hotels; coat and hat hooks on the outsides of restaurant booths; butchers who cut your meat to order; and the Time Lady. These things made us better people, really. Less grouchy. More punctual.

So on this tragic day, let us bow our heads in a moment of reverent silence and solemnly consider the passing of Time Lady. Let us offer a prayer for the repose of her soul. She was a giving, truthful woman, ever vigilant, never complaining, a latter day town crier. A paragon of constancy and dependability. Never impatient; never rude; always helpful. Known to generations of Americans, she will remain a fond memory of better days and finer things.