Whose On The Line?

Mindy and Mikaela talk about phone operators and being able to hear phone calls. 

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
I don't know that song, Hannah, what is that? It's called Dance
with You and it's from a Broadwaymusical, but the name I'm lost on
the name, well, I meanappropriate for today, because Mindy, we
are filled with all things theater,and we're going to talk to the contemporary

(00:21):
theater of Ohio coming up here injust a little bit. Definitely recognize it
as a Broadway show, but Ihad no idea what it was or what
it was from. But yeah,we've got that field today. You know,
if we're not talking about the stageof a softball field, we're talking
about the stage of the theata weare before we go, that segment comes
up next to Actually, but Mindy, we were having a fun conversation earlier,

(00:44):
very early in RAW that I wantto revisit with you because we were
talking about, you know how there'sthis eight hundred and six y ten WTVN
phone number inside the studio on thatwhiteboard that's behind us or in front of
us. Well yeah, uh huh. We were saying how no one ever
needs to call an eight hundred numberreally anymore? Right, because if you're
hearing us, whether you're in southernOhio or you're down by Cincinnati or further

(01:07):
up by Mansfield, you can justuse your cell phone. You don't have
to call an eight hundred number anymore, right, I mean exactly, I
mean eight hundred numbers are supposed tobe free. Yeah, right right now,
it really doesn't matter. No,So it's funny that they still have
this up here. They've had alot on this board for a while,
but it got Hannah and I talkingabout how there's things like that eight hundred

(01:29):
numbers are dialing a one before youdial a phone number that you don't have
to do anymore because of smartphones,and you don't really think about it.
Is that why they took the oneaway? Because you used to have to
dial one, six, one,four, eight, two one, whatever
the phone number was. Sometimes youhave to dial a one, sometimes you
don't. Yeah, So if youcall from a cell phone, you do

(01:52):
not have to dial a one anymorebefore an area code. Only if you're
calling from like a desk phone,or if you have one of those regular
phones still inside your house, thenyou have to dial a one. Isn't
it weird how cell phones changed allof that. It's weird how technology has
changed. Think about all those yearsago, when there was an operator sitting

(02:15):
at a desk with a board infront of her, like a wall kind
of a board, having to connectwire to wire with a number to another
number, and all the conversations thatthey were probably able to hear. It's
wild that you brought that up,because that's exactly the conversation we had about
this about two and a half hoursago. I'm serious. So we asked

(02:38):
people if they had ever experienced havingto pick up the phone and ask an
operator to call long distance because thatwas going on still in the nineteen sixties.
So you would have been too young, I think, to ever have
had to do that, or didyou No, I was born in nineteen
sixty eight. Yeah, things thatI remember hearing. You remember having those

(03:01):
little baby monitors when the kids werein a crib or you know, you
would have a little monitor so youcould hear them breathing or if you know,
they coughed or something. Sometimes youwould get interference from someone else's phone
and you could hear conversations on thosebaby monitors. Yes, I do remember
that. Is that that's when wehad the wireless phones, right, like

(03:23):
the ones that were what did wecall them? Though? We didn't call
them wireless. What did we callthem? I don't know, you know,
the ones that you just like tookoff and had the little antenna on
the top, Like, what didwe call those? I cannot think of
it, but yes, that isone of them. Were they remote phones
or radio phone? I'm looking itup right now because I mean we had
those portable phones. Yeah, andso that was what would kind of stream

(03:47):
in on those baby monitors. You'reabsolutely right, cordial. Yeah, And
I used to think to myself,what if I'd hear someone like plotting a
murder over a phone light and youwould hear it coming through on the baby
monitor because you didn't know who youwere listening in on, and you felt
guilty listening in, But then againyou felt, huh, what are they

(04:09):
talking about? I got to heara little bit. Yeah. So they
also called them chordless. I've calledthem portable too, but cordless and portable,
and you know what, there's stillplenty for sale. That's so funny.
I'm looking online right now since wewere looking up what to call them,
and there's plenty on sale. Imean, if I were going to
have a phone at my house,that would be the kind of phone I
would want to have, is achordless phone. When I first started in

(04:30):
this business, when I worked atWLAO and LIMA, when we didn't have
the cell phones, we used twoway two way walkie talkies and pagers,
like if the news director wanted toreach you when you were out on remote
location somewhere, they would have topaige you. Oh my gosh. I
came in right after that, likethe first cell phones had just started in

(04:54):
news, so I never carried apager with me. I don't believe.
I mean like I was right afterthat when like those pressed to talk phones,
you know what I mean. Likethere was this Motorola had a version
that was like kind of pager andcell phone. But I remember people talking
about the pagers. When you thinkto yourself years ago that you used to

(05:14):
say, well, someday it's goingto be that you don't just talk to
your friends and family, you'll beable to see them. And now look
we've got time, we've got tomand then you think, huh, what's
next, totally what's the future.Well, we got a couple of calls
during raw about this, and Ihave a really interesting story to tell you
if we have time, but wewe might not in this segment because we

(05:36):
have a caller. Tony is onthe phone with us. Tony, I
think you called in to talk aboutthis, and I don't know if you
had an operator experience or not,but I'm curious to hear what you have
to say. Hey, yes,ma'am, I was an operator in the
in the military and the United extarment. Oh my gosh, tell us some

(05:58):
stories about having to connect call.Well, what you guys are talking about
is called a third party line?And is it like a party line or
what's a third party line? Like? What is that technically? Okay,
it's called a third party line whenyou're operator. Back in the day,

(06:21):
when your operator put her or hisnormally it was a her because it was
World War two era, when shewould put her stem from your call to
who you're calling, and she wouldput her stems in there. She could

(06:42):
put her stem in and she couldlisten to your call and okay, Well,
there was also what was called athird party line where okay's say your
neighbor. Uh the uh. It'skind of hard to explain, man,

(07:08):
But the lines, the telephone linesback in the day, they did not
have enough telephone line to facilitate everybody, got it. Yeah, so people
had to share lines. So thosewere third party lines. So your neighbor

(07:31):
could actually pick up their telephone whileyou were on your telephone call. Your
neighbor could actually pick up their telephoneand they could hear what you were saying.
Wow. Well, I don't knowif you I don't know if you
ever watched like the old h Ilove Lucy? Oh yeah, I love

(07:54):
Lucy. It was good for that. Yeah, did you start say that
one more time? Ma'am? Didyou ever have a mess up when you
were like doing the operator job connectingwires? Oh? Sure, sure,
I you know there was there wasa lot of times where because of the
way our boards were back in thenine this was in the nineties in the

(08:20):
mid nineties, and our boards,the numbers weren't exactly clear. So sometimes
you would plug it into somebody differentand okay, well now they're talking to
the wrong people. What But that'sthat what you guys were talking about,
ma'am. That that's called a thirdparty line where people bled overdover could hear

(08:45):
other people talking over we're up againsta break, tony, But thank you
for that explanation. That's that's okay, fantastic, thank you for college and
I love your show and God blessyou guys. We love Tony. I
love you. Yeah, Tony,thank you. Have a great rest to
your Sunday. Man. He wasnice, Mindy. That's a that's a

(09:07):
good way to end that segment.That's a great way to end that segment.
Yes, the Contemporary Theater of Ohiois up next. And to giveaway
here on what matters