The 'Green Thing'

Hat Tip to Iggymom

I grew up at a time when you ran down to the corner store either with a shopping cart you folded up and wheeled to the store (The stores had hooks you could hand these on.) or on your bike for a few items.  Forget taking the car, it just wasn't done in my neighborhood.


This should bring back some memories to those of us old folks who remember when being green meant you got taken to the doctor.

The Green Thing

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 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.

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 throw-away 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 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn’t it said 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 smart-aleck young person.

Remember: Don’t make old people mad.

We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to tick us off.

I guess that we just did things to destroy this Earth.  I remember when the Milkman delivered milk, cheese, butter, cream, etc... to your door.  Delivered in glass bottles that you washed and returned.  (Even though the company would wash and sterilize these same bottles.)  I remember using paper bags to cover my school text books.  (So they wouldn't get ruined and could be used by other students.)  I remember hand-me-downs.  Getting them and then sending them out.  We never did anything to save the Earth.  Just everything we did saved money first.  Funny how that was the really important thing.

BTW:  If you are Jewish you might have one more memory.  I remember getting Seltzer Water delivered to our home.  A case a week.  We never bought soda, we made our own.  (I love homemade Egg Creams.)