Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have
this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today.
Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future
generations."
She was right -- our generation didn't have the 'green
thing' in its day. Back then, we
returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store
sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it
could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our
day.
Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags,
that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage
bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This
was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use
by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown
paper bags. But too bad we didn't do the
"green thing" back then.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in
every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't
climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she
was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't
have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling
machine burning up 220 volts -- wind
and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early
days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always
brand-new clothing.
But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green
thing" back in our day. Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house
-- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a
handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana .
In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile
item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not
Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and
burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran
on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health
club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing"
back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of
using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled
writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor
blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the
blade got dull. But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
Back
then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a
24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a
whole house did before the "green thing." We had one electrical outlet
in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we
didn't need a
computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from
satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful
we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back
then? Please forward this on to another
selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smarty pants young
person...*
Source: An email
from Dave Weldon 11/26/13
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