The notebook covers themselves frame a story

As my Bloomington/Daffodil entries in this presentation became grouped by subject, rather than chronological order, we lost a sense of the progression of the notebooks themselves. Take a look now.

• 18, Cornell Campus Store, 90 sheets, kraft cover. Undated. The Cornell spiral-bound lined volumes have wide margins, 3½ inches. My, how I loved those wide margins! Such luxury! Poetry drafts, early ashram experiences. A few bits saved for possible current poems now.
• 19, Cornell Campus Store, 90 sheets, kraft cover. Undated. Let me repeat, these Cornell spiral-bound lined volumes have wide margins, 3½ inches. More poetry drafts, early ashram experiences. A few bits saved for possible current poems now. (How is it I had a stash of these varied campus notebooks?)
• 20, Cornell, 90 sheets. Undated, except one entry in late November. “Swami Jnana-Devananda into winter: ashram.” Mostly quotes: Zen, Ginsberg, Hutterites, etc. Includes Swami’s return from first India trip. The onset of my ashram residency. 23:XI:71
• Vol 21 Winter ’72: ashram. Begins with our first week-long seminar. Some really bizarre group action, both from the guests and the staff. includes trip to Ohio for Grandma’s funeral; she died June 21
• Vol 22 summer ’72, ashram, and well into autumn. More tracings in the water / into Sannasyn, 8:VII:72 11:45 am.
• Unnumbered red cover stenographer book, mostly October 1972. Includes trips to New York City and Binghamton.
• Vol 23? Starts 23:XII:72 and ends with leaving ashram.
• Vol 24? Miscellaneous, though where the pages fit in is uncertain now:
• 24, Yellow Varsity. Has inner cover His Holiness Sri Swami Jnana-Devananda in the middle of Erewhon 22 January 1973. So my ashram residency ended earlier than I recalled …
• 25, green Indiana cover, beginning 19 February ’73 in a Bloomington visit, then turning into the first of the Fostoria series. Some overlap with the previous volume.
• 26, hunter green cover, beginning December 1973. Filed out of sequence, opening with many Tibetan notes. Three-inch left margins.
• 27, blue IU (Aristotle’s Inc.), 23:III:73 on inside cover
• 29, hunter green, 17:I:74, Fostoria. By now I’m dating the entries, in one of the new styles (colons or periods, depending). National Blank Book Company Holyoke, Mass. Wide margins!
• 30, BGSU, 24:VII:74, Fostoria. Verge of marriage.
• END OF CRATE 1: the plastic milk carton cubes, which were so handy in all of my moves from place to place and then turning into instant bookshelves later. Remember those?
• 31, Hunter Green cover, begins 18:X:74 Another wide-margin notebook. Glory be!
• 32, avocado green Penrite 4 Subject Divider Theme Book, 98 cents, 2409 W. Second St., Marion Indiana 46952. Undated entries, mostly stabs at verse and a few other notes in closing up in Fostoria and traipsing on to Bloomington. The last three divider sections remained blank.
• 28, green Campus twin-wire, 59 cents, product of Mead Corporation, Dayton, Ohio. Out of order.

This does have me wondering if you saved any of your college notebooks or the like in your life journey to wherever you are now. What souvenirs have you kept? Or what have you intentionally discarded? Perhaps even with regrets later? Photos, letters, cards as well?

By the way, I hate to think what a spiralbound notebook costs nowadays.