WE’RE NOT ‘GREEN’ ENOUGH
– Anonymous. Feel free to openly copy and pass on.
W hile checking out at the grocery store, the young cashier
suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her
own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the
environment.
The woman apologized to the young girl 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.”
The older lady said that she was right, and went on to explain:
Back then, we returned milk bottles, glass pop 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 oh no,
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
using them as household garbage bags, was using them as book
covers for our school books. 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 with their brown paper bag covering. 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.
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.
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silvergoldmagazine.ca
WELL-BEING
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?). 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 blade in a razor instead of
throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
Back then, 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 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 give this to another selfish old person who needs a
lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.
We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take
much to upset us… Especially coming from a smart alek
who can’t make change without the cash register telling them
how much.•
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