Journals, Notebooks, and Annuals, Oh My…Part 1, the very first story.

It’s not easy to pull together all the assorted writings, lists, scribbles, doodles, art, and history in my life because I’ve assembled them multiple times, in different places. Not sure I’ve found it all, yet, but I think I have gathered most of the books and ephemera.

Ta da! I did find my first ever story about giraffes. Written in Grade VI, which would have been age 10/11 in 1964-65, it is going to keep you on the edge of your seat. Not! I did not find anything written on that huge paper we had in the early years of grade school so there won’t be any two-sentence stories. This one does have, however, noticeably short sentences.

Cathy Champion has quite a bit of writing in her history. My parents spelled my nickname with a Y and it was that way until I met Cathy Baker in middle school (BTW, I have a few decades of greeting card selections from Cathy and others to share in due course. My friends and family have wicked funny senses of humor!). We became good friends, wanted to sit together, and the teacher wanted something to distinguish between us when calling on students. I became Cathi with an “i.” She with a “y.”

Here is my very first published story (in the Olympic Hills Elementary school something or other – I only kept page 9 with my story). May I note that a) the teacher did a lot of work to type up at least 10 pages of kids stories and b) there must have been a Boeing worker or something like that in the family because the pages look to be Xeroxed, not mimeographed, as was common at schools in the 60s. Or maybe a printer printed them up as a favor, but that still is a lot of typesetting. A mystery, really.

The 55-year later me would say something about punctuation after a subordinating clause and using “they” for a thing when His toes started to get bigger and bigger would have been better. However, I know for sure that I didn’t learn to diagram sentences until 1966/67 (and yes, I have the book for that too.) I think I’m going to frame this with my cute stuffed giraffe from the imported goods store on Vashon called “Giraffe.” BTW, donated/bought a hoody from the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. They are on the up-and-up for saving these awesome creatures.

This story is presented just as it was printed all those decades ago. Interesting that the grades were done in Latin numerals. I’ve found annuals and pictures for grade school in Seattle, private school in New York, and junior high and high school in Seattle. I’d forgotten that Latin was a thing within my time at school. In my private school, the annuals remind me, there was a Latin department and classes for the Upper School girls (I was Middle School). Would have helped with botany in college had I been exposed.

Notebooks range from the 60s to present day. Most are a mix of finished writing, ideas, notes about this, that, and the other, sketches, garden ideas, and a bit of actual artwork from the year I spent becoming a graphic artist. Finding all of this is certainly interesting and often emotional. One book began the day after I met the love of my life and some of that reads like a teenage diary. I was not. A teenager, that is.

Each of the identifiable thoughts and works are so very tied to the times, such as a poem and a song written when Vietnam was an issue. As the blog title indicates, there are many memories and more musing about things than I remembered doing or keeping. Meanwhile, the story that started them all.