I'm Looking for Notebooks

A set of matching gold plaid notebooks — three-ring binder, spiral notebook, and steno paid — school supplies from the late 1960s, are at the center of an essay I’m writing.

I discovered them in Seventeen Magazine all those decades ago, the summer before entered high school. I just knew that carrying them would catapult me into popularity and earn me a permanent place in the annals of style. I delivered a sales pitch effective enough that my parents bought me the notebooks. I carried them my entire freshman year in high school.

I have traveled far and wide across the Internet, from Etsy to Pinterest to Ebay and beyond, searching for an image of those notebooks or, better yet, a copy of the ad for them. I have even looked on every school supply manufacturer’s website I can think of.

These “high fashion” notebooks also came in turquoise and cranberry, which is what we called maroon in those groovy days. They must not have had more than one school year of shelf life because I can’t find an image of them anywhere. ChatGPT has given me some research leads, but even it hasn’t found a record of them.

Honestly, they’re not a figment of my imagination, they were real. My best friend had a set, too, but no fellow Baby Boomers I have spoken with so far remember them. I’m getting a lot of blank looks.

I’m not giving up my quest, though. I’m looking at library catalogs, advertiing archives. Somewhere out there someone remembers these things. I hope they see this and contact me!