As someone who spends a lot of time looking at 1960s and 70s editions of the Journal on microfilm, I’m often reminded of all the great little features that made the newspaper special back then. These include “Today’s Chuckle,” “Tell Me Why,” “Dick Shull’s TV Mailbag,” “Mahoney’s Memos,” and perhaps the most important of all, “The Hot Line.”
“The Hot Line” was a popular column designed to help Journal readers get solutions to a variety of problems. It might be as simple as providing an answer to a question like, “Was there ever a place called Gore Orphanage in this area?” or as complicated as interceding on behalf of a reader to try and cut through some government red tape.
The column had first appeared in the paper in January 1966. Joanne Deubel began writing it in February 1969.
Anyway, as noted in the article below from August 8, 1971, the Journal decided to include “The Hot Line” in its Sunday Journal edition. (It was already appearing on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.)
