1988 Democratic National Convention : Convention Notebook : No Off-the-Cuff Lines-- It’s All in His Briefcase

Michael S. Dukakis had better hope he doesn’t mislay his briefcase. It contains the only copy of his acceptance speech, John DeVillars, the Massachusetts governor’s Statehouse operations director, said.

The speech has gone through numerous revisions. A former Dukakis aide submitted a draft two weeks ago that Dukakis decided he did not like. Speech writer Bill Woodward, the campaign’s main wordsmith, submitted a new one last week and it has been redrafted four times, DeVillars said.

Dukakis has been fine-tuning the text. He had planned to spend much of Monday working on the address, but his meeting with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other events cut into the time, so he has been toting the speech--with handwritten notes--all over Atlanta. He spent most of Tuesday tinkering with it.

(It may not be a preview of the speech, but the usually granite-faced Dukakis laughed aloud at keynote speaker Ann Richards’ remark that Vice President George Bush was “born with a silver foot in his mouth.”)

Conventioneers are learning that in Atlanta, you don’t just say: “Meet me on Peachtree.” At least 20 streets in Atlanta have Peachtree in their names--and another 50 or so streets in the suburbs.

There is, of course, plain old Peachtree Street, which runs north and south through downtown and is the city’s most famous thoroughfare. Scarlett O’Hara rode up Peachtree to Aunt Pittypat’s house when she arrived in Atlanta.

There are also Peachtree Road Circle, Industrial Boulevard, Memorial Drive and Center Boulevard. There is Peachtree Battle Avenue and a West Peachtree Street that runs north and south.

Atlantans say there is magic in the name. Scarlett’s old address carries such prestige that companies keep offices there just for the snob appeal.

Oddly enough, historians have never been able to determine if there ever were peach trees along the street. Some say the name is a corruption of pitch tree , itself a corruption of the Creek Indian name for a giant pine tree that once marked the trail that eventually became Peachtree Street.

The convention had not yet begun when the first shipment of its detritus showed up: about eight tons of paper--speeches, agendas, and copies of the nation’s leading newspapers--all to be recycled.

It took some picking through the contributions of conventioneers who thought the recycling bins a dandy spot for leftover caramel corn and hot dog remnants, but the first load delivered to Carauster Industry in nearby Austell already has been converted into enough rolls to make 40,000 18-by-24-inch posters.

The souvenir posters, which show the Atlanta skyline in purple, orange, blue and red inside a Georgia peach, will be ready in time to be handed out during Thursday’s convention wrap-up.

It’s not just Dukakis’ Greek connection that gives the convention an Olympian aura.

The souvenir pin-trading frenzy that seized the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles has reached such a pitch here that news operations are putting up signs at their doors in self-defense: “Sorry, we have no pins.”

One collector said it started before the convention, when phone installers began asking for pins. The most coveted ones at the moment are an NBC radio pin--with peacock in full color--and a green Boston Globe delivery van pin. One collector said of the Globe gem: “That’s rumored to be worth two floor passes.”

A Boston sidewalk artist--he literally draws on the sidewalk--opened an outdoor studio this week in front of the Atlanta hotel where Dukakis and his entourage are staying.

Bob (Sidewalk Sam) Guillemin, 49, will try chalking sketches of Dukakis instead of standbys like Abe Lincoln.