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Being Green
Checking
out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the 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 truely 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. 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 smartass young person.