The Green Thing

While waiting for my turn in the local supermarket checkout line, the young whippersnapper cashier lectured the older lady ahead of me about how she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags aren't good for the environment. The checker added, "That's the problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right -- we from the older generation didn't have the green thing.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store which the store, in turn, sent back to the plant to be recycled and used over and over -- they were washed, sterilized, and refilled. But we didn't have today's green thing back in our day.

We walked up the 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 because we didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, baby's diapers were washed and reused because we didn't have the disposable kind. Our laundry hung on a line for the wind and sun to dry; we had no electric or gas dryers. As kids, we got mainly hand-me-down clothes from our older brothers or sisters/cousins instead of brand-new designer clothes all the time. But the young woman was right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had only one TV and/or radio in the house -- not a TV or stereo in every room; and our TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember?), not like today's screen the size of the State of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric mixers or food processors to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send by mail, we used wadded up old newspapers as cushioning -- not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we used a push mower which ran on human power, not gas or electricity. We exercised by doing household chores and working around the house; we didn't go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. Kids played tag, dodge ball, or just ran races to see who ran the fastest; we had no computer or electronic games. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

When we were thirsty, we drank straight from a water fountain; we had no cup or water in a plastic bottle. We wrote with a refillable ink pen, not some disposable ballpoint or felt-tip pen. Guys shaved with either a straight razor which had to be sharpened or a razor with a reusable blade; there were no disposable plastic or electric shavers. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people rode either a streetcar or bus to work, and kids rode their bikes or walked to school instead of turning Mom into some personal taxi driver. 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 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. We learned to do arithmetic: add, subtract, multiply and divide with paper and pencil, or better yet, in our heads; we had no calculators to merely mindlessly press buttons and give answers.

But isn't it sad how terribly wasteful we really were because we didn't have the green thing when we were young and growing up?

Please forward this to other "selfish old persons" who need a lesson in conservation from some young smart ass! -Author Unknown