Origins of a Frame of Mind

W ay in the back of my mind was the idea that, at least in part, I would find something of the innocence of my youth when I traveled back to Green Bay. I guess that's always been part of these trips?aside from seeing my family. I'm sure it's the same with most people, for better or worse, however misguided a desire that is. n Finding hints of my youthful days in northeastern

Wisconsin is not a difficult thing to do, given how little has changed. The houses are the same, the streets are the same. A lot of the people I grew up with are still there (though they're generally more bitter than they were). I stay in my old room, sleep in my old bed.

This most recent visit, however, provided what was perhaps a more lucid portrait of that youth than I was prepared for or comfortable with.

The closet in my old room holds five large boxes of books, which my folks had packed away in the years after I moved out. During every visit, I'd take a quick look through a couple of the boxes, to see if there was anything I wanted to bring back home with me. Usually there was?a good translation of the Aeneid, some novelizations, all my old MAD mass markets.

My mom walked into the room as I was pawing through the second box, not finding too much beyond a bunch of old textbooks and sleazy paperbacks.

"There's something else here, too," she said, opening another closet. "A big box full of old papers and files and notebooks. You want to take a look through those, too?

"Sure," I said again, not having any idea what might be found there.

She dragged the box out and heaved it up on the bed. It looked awful heavy. She opened the lid to reveal a very neatly?and very tightly?packed collection of dozens upon dozens of spiral-bound notebooks, together with about half as many colored folders.

"Oh my," I said.

When she left the room, I repacked the books and put them away (my bag was too jammed as it was anyway), put them back in the closet, turned on a bedside lamp and reached for the first notebook, having no idea what to expect.

Well, I guess I had some idea?it was clear that I was looking at the school notebooks I'd used for every single class I'd ever taken from junior high onward. And if that idea doesn't make your stomach churn with revulsion, well, you're not human. I was sure these had all been burned decades ago. At least I'd hoped they had.

The covers weren't marked at all, so that was no help. I actually had to look inside them, and run the risk of releasing all those demons. I held my breath, and flipped the first one open.

I'd forgotten how tiny and cramped (some might say "anal") my handwriting used to be. I brought the page closer to the light, and brought my face closer to the page. I saw a mathematical equation of some sort. One I didn't recognize, and would never be able to decipher now.

I shrugged, closed the notebook and tossed it to the ground. Wouldn't be needing that one. I reached for the next and opened it. This one had writing in it?an English or a history notebook maybe?but again, the handwriting was microscopic.

As my eyes drew closer to the page, I saw that the writing was not only small, but faded as well. No. 2 pencil lead fades over time.

Thank God, I thought.

In fact, the deeper I flipped in the notebook, the dimmer the writing grew, until it appeared that the pages were all blank. This was a tremendous relief.

I can just toss all of these and not worry about them at all, I thought. Then I flipped to the back of the notebook.

That's where I discovered what I was afraid I'd discover?the pre-class/boring class/study hall/lunchroom musings, poetry, cartoons and sketches of an overly maudlin, angst-ridden adolescent.

I slammed the notebook shut and dropped it to the floor.

Shit's too small for me to read anyway.

I grabbed another notebook and?not caring what class it was from?opened it straight to the back, where I found more of the same. Fewer sketchings this time, though. But the writing was darker and more legible. I quickly scanned down just the first letters at the far lefthand side of the page. They were all capitals. I winced, swallowed my bile and dropped that one, too.

Nobody, ever, needs to see any of that.

I grabbed the notebooks up off the floor and crammed them back into the box.

"Well, these can all go to recycling," I said aloud.

Just out of curiosity, I grabbed a handful of the folders. Most of them contained handouts and quizzes, review sheets and class syllabi. No need to hang on to those, either.

But when I opened an unmarked bright-orange folder, I was surprised when a collection of newspaper clippings spilled out into my lap.

"Oh," I said.

I picked one up and unfolded it. It was from the front page of a Green Bay Press-Gazette. There was no date, but it featured a large picture of a dour-looking President Carter. "Dead Soldiers Left in Iran," read the headline. Then below it, atop a related story, "Praise, Concern Here Following Rescue Try."

I remembered that. I was in eighth grade, sitting next to Ed Gould in Mr. Frantz's English class. He was an odd man, Mr. Frantz. He looked like Sam Elliott, but much shorter. I always had the impression he was looking down his nose at us. At everyone in that town for that matter. Probably because he was married to that uptight, snooty, classical pianist.

But that's all beside the point. We were sitting in his class and he was playing a transistor radio so we could hear the news about the botched attempt to save the American hostages in Iran. It was a bad scene. The president had denied and denied and denied that he was going to use the military to get them out of there, and now, suddenly, this.

I folded the clipping, put it back in the folder and looked at another. This was from the News-Chronicle, Green Bay's upstart tabloid: "Carter Uses Paddle to Repel Aquatic Bunny."

I remembered that one, too. The "killer bunny" jokes followed him for years afterward. I was particularly smitten with this story at the time, given that I was the owner of a bloodthirsty 25-pound rabbit named Charlotte.

"Murder Suspect Held" read the next one?and beneath it, "Something Special About Mourning Today." It wasn't until much later, looking at the actual text of the story beneath a magnifying glass, that I realized the suspect in question was Mark David Chapman.

The clips?and there were dozens of them, from major front-page stories to tiny, 50-word news items?mostly ranged between early 1979 and the end of 1980. I would've been 14 or 15 years old at the time, but now had no recollection whatsoever of cutting these stories out and putting them in this orange folder.

"Nuclear Silo Explosion Injures 21," "Viets Use Pincer Movement," "Ship Hits Bridge, Several Feared Dead," "Bishop Shunned Appeal Just Before Death."

It was funny?and a little spooky?how closely several of the headlines mirrored some of the things I'd been seeing in the previous weeks and months. "Terrorist Bombs Rock Major Cities," "Marines Swarm into Guantanamo," "Attack Iran If Hostages Harmed, Americans Say," "White House Denies Iran Raid Planned," "Khomeini Supports Attacks on US," "Three Planes Hijacked to Cuba." (Which was accompanied by the related story, "New Ways Sought to Prevent Hijackings." The main concern at the time seemed to be with bottled liquids.)

There were clips about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, about a rash of volcanic eruptions, about arms deals and new weapons systems ("Pentagon Pushes for New, Futuristic-Type Weapons"). Three Mile Island was in there, as were the preparations for the first shuttle launch. Iranians occupied the Statue of Liberty for a bit, and some other group took over an embassy in London. Mt. St. Helens exploded the second day of the big Miami riots. James Earl Ray tried to escape from prison. Eleven kids were trampled to death at a Who concert in Cincinnati. Someone was plotting to assassinate Walter Mondale and someone else pulled a knife in Ted Kennedy's office. Oh, and the ozone layer was depleting.

There were a few lighter pieces in there, too?the discovery of the Titanic, a "Question of the Day," in which locals were asked, "Do You Think Bart Starr Should Be Replaced?" and a long obit for Alfred Hitchcock.

I folded the clippings up, put them back in the folder and put the folder in my bag to bring to Brooklyn with me. Everything else went back in the box, which I closed up and left at the top of the stairs, telling my parents that it could all go out with the trash. That took care of that little problem.

The following evening I was back in New York, sitting at the kitchen table with Morgan.

"Let me show you something I found out there," I said, then reached into my bag and pulled out the folder.

She looked through the clips, noting how well they'd held up these past two decades, uncovering several I hadn't noticed in Green Bay. She also quickly detected a distinct pattern I hadn't noticed, either. Once she pointed it out, though, it was too obvious.

"You were a very apocalyptic kid."

She was right, of course. I thought that what I had there was nothing more than a collection of clips concerning the major news events of that two-year period. Some social studies project or something. But I was wrong. Plenty of big stories (like the election) weren't represented at all. Nearly everything I had here (even the Bart Starr question) pointed in one direction. It came as no real surprise?I just didn't know that it had been around that early.

She unfolded another Press-Gazette story and flipped it over.

"Iran Invasion May Signal World War III, Report Says."

"Well, I guess that pretty much sums it up."