My husband recently passed and I'm realizing not just how much "stuff" he had but how much the two of us had together. It's going to take me at least a year to go through everything and I'm overwhelmed at the sheer enormity of the task. If your friend did not have a loving spouse or child who had the time to sort through a lifetime it's easy (yet sad) to understand how the notebook ended up in a thrift shop. Honestly, I'm impressed the thrift shop had it and that the notebook had not made its way into a recycle bin somewhere. Personal items such as that don't usually sell well.