My friend sent me this
Checking out at the store, the young cashier
suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own shopping 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 cashier 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, pop 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. 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 in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every shop 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 nappies 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 county of Yorkshire. 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 post, 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 petrol 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 water from a fountain or a tap when we were thirsty instead of
demanding a plastic bottle flown in from another country. We accepted that a
lot of food was seasonal and didn’t expect that to be bucked by flying it
thousands of air miles around the world. We actually cooked food that didn’t
come out of a packet, tin or plastic wrap and we could even wash our own
vegetables and chop our own salad.
But we didn't have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the tram or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school
or walked instead of turning their mothers 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 sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were
just because we didn't have the green thing back then?
Keep it nice, I might cry if you write anything upsetting (like not)
