I have all of my yearbooks from junior high and high school; one for each year (grades 7-12), filled with lots of notes from my classmates.  I was very fortunate in that I went to elementary, junior high and high school with many of the same students, so most of my yearbooks have autographs from these same students over many years.  As strong as I feel about "going green," I cannot imagine being without this part of the past in the physical sense of having these books with signatures, doodles and just plain funny stories of our school years.

The attached autograph is from my oldest friend, written to me in my senior yearbook.  She's not oldest in the sense of age, but oldest in that she's the person I've been friends with the longest...44 years now.  I shared this with her before posting it online and she said, "Wow, I still feel the same way!"

Another tradition I'm sure is long gone with the advent of texting, is passing notes between classes.  Our teachers sure frowned on us writing those tiny notes then folding them in some chaotic way during class, but I kept all the notes my girlfriends gave me.  At my 20-year class reunion I gave each of the girls a book entitled, "Teenage Angst" with the notes I received from each of them during our high school years.  They got the biggest kick out of reading about their bad hair days, cute boys they had a crush on at that very moment and all the other silly things teenage girls think about.  Back then everything was such a big deal, but at the reunion it was fun to sit, read and realize just how trivial all of it was, especially by then when we were well into our adult lives!

I'm nostalgic and often wonder with technology if nostalgia will be a thing of the past.  For nostalgia's sake, I sure hope not!