Going Underground

I didn’t know what I was doing. None of us did. We just wanted to raise hell and stick it to the man. Isn’t that how all great journalism begins?

My career in newspapering started in 1969 at Tuscola High School in Waynesville, North Carolina when I became editor for an underground newspaper called The Bull Sheet. I never considered working for the school paper because it was a tool for the administration, but an underground paper? That caught the revolutionary zeitgeist of the time, though I didn’t know what zeitgeist meant back then. I just knew that it would irritate adults.

“The Bull Sheet didn’t change the dress code, but it amused my schoolmates, so that made the effort worthwhile.”

We started the paper to complain about the school dress code. There were limits on how long a boy’s hair could be or how short a girl skirt could fall. No facial hair. No shorts. It didn’t affect me directly. I couldn’t grow a mustache and my hair was long but not too long, but my freedom of expression was being crushed. 

I wrote an editorial wise-cracking that the existence of long hairs indicated Communist infiltration of the student body, since Stalin and Lenin had mustaches. I also referred to the school administration as “Big Brother.” Actually, the principal was a kind man who went to my church and played bridge with my parents. I’m glad he never asked me about the paper.

The Bull Sheet was not really a newspaper. It was mimeographed sheets of paper stapled together and sold for a quarter. I thought we’d come up with a witty and original name, only to find out that dozens if not hundreds of other underground papers had the same name. The Bull Sheet didn’t change the dress code, but it amused my schoolmates, so that made the effort worthwhile. After two issues, it folded.