Yardley

OUT OF STEP: NOTESFROM A PURPLE DECADE.Jonathan Yardley.Villard.264 pages. $20. Dudgeon, I believe, is the word for Jonathan Yardley's all-too-accustomed state of mind in this collection of columns from the Washington Post. More often ranging from a low to a middling dudgeon than the classic high sort, it pervades all but a dozen or so of these 64 slightly dispiriting, remarkably brave commentaries on the colorful 1980s.Dispiriting, because he addresses "cultural and literary affairs, education both higher and lower, the press and the media, the ebb and flow of American social life," things that touch us directly; and he's telling us, in effect, that America is in serious danger of going down the drain.

IT IS 7:00 p.m. election night, Sept. 18, 1950, and you are watching WMAR (Channel 2) -- the only Baltimore TV station carrying election returns. (You could have tuned in to Charles Roeder on WCBM, the only radio station in those days that could be said to be "doing election returns.") On the TV set, seated at table on camera in a studio in The Sun building at Charles and Baltimore were David ("Dave") Stickle, Ernest ("Ernie") Baugh and Richard ("Moco") Yardley. Stickle was a Sun reporter who went to TV reporting (he was Baltimore's first TV reporter)