Found an old journal at a thrift store in Toledo last weekend

I was browsing the bookshelf at a small thrift shop and pulled out a spiral notebook from 1987. Inside were about 30 pages of short story ideas and character sketches from someone named Diane. Has anyone else stumbled across a stranger's writing in the wild and felt like you got a peek into their life?

2 comments

2 Comments

bennett.nora16d ago

Had a friend find a shoebox full of letters in a desk she bought at a flea market outside Cleveland, all written by a woman named Ruth to someone named Frank during World War 2. She spent a whole afternoon reading about their meetups at a diner and Frank's complaints about Army food, and she felt like she knew them both by the time she reached the last envelope. Ended up tracking down a grandson through an old address on one letter and mailed the whole box to him, which he said meant the world to his grandmother who was still alive.

averymartin16d ago

Drove my friend to visit his mom once and she pulled out this beat up composition notebook from the 70s that she found in a recycling bin behind her old apartment. It was FULL of poems and really weird drawings of cats wearing tiny hats. She still has it on her shelf and calls it "Cecil's Masterpiece" because the name on the cover was Cecil something. My friend and I read a few pages out loud and laughed our heads off at this one poem about a toaster that fell in love with a bagel. Felt kinda weird though like we were spying on some random guy's brain from 40 years ago.