People who grew up in Lakeland some time ago might be surprised to learn that the telephone number they used to dial to hear the time and temperature is still operating. But it will be disconnected by the end of this month.
Publix has provided the service since 1965 for people who dialed (863) 686-8118. But with smartphones giving us instant information, the nostalgic dial-the-time line is going the way of other former Publix standbys such as S&H Green Stamps, Sunday closings and Toledo scales, which are still in older stores but aren’t going into new ones.
The phone service has been “a helpful resource over the years,” said Publix spokeswoman Hannah Herring — but it will end on March 28 because usage is down now.
Jennifer Bush, who grew up in Lakeland, said she hasn’t used the time-temp line in years but “a part of me just cried” when she heard it is going away.
“Some numbers are just burned in your brain,” she said.
Bush retired as the official historian for Publix Super Markets a few years ago. The recordings began with “Publix time is,” Bush said, and she thinks they ended with “where shopping is a pleasure.”
The technology relied on a mechanism that pieced together tapes of a human voice reading the hour, minute and temperature based on a connected clock and a thermometer.
That technology was powered by Atlanta-based Audichron, according to Lakeland resident John Watkins, who said in a Facebook discussion that he worked on Publix’s Audichron machine in the early 1980s.
He added that the voice of the Audichron announcements was Jane Barbe, an east Polk County native who moved to Atlanta before she started recording announcements for Audichron and later for multiple phone companies nationwide.
A typical time/temperature message read by Barbe:
Publix didn’t originate the local phone service. The supermarket chain took it over from a local bank, Bush said, but she doesn’t remember which bank it was. (If any readers know which bank provided the service, let us know.)
Bush did not have data on when usage of the local call-in service peaked. Nationally, calls to the automated lines were highest in the 1990s, NPR reported a year ago.
Some lines that were discontinued years ago have been revived.
A telecommunications engineer created a technology to rescue some of the older lines when he learned that the number he called as a child in Dallas was about to shut down, the Tampa Bay Times reported in 2022.
Among the nearby revived lines are Tampa (813-622-1212), St. Petersburg (727-894-6666) and Clearwater (727-447-6611).
And some people apparently keep calling the dead lines in hopes they would eventually come back. A line that was revived in Kentucky got 14,000 calls in its first week in operation even though nobody announced it was back on line, The Times reported.
