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 2 kw an hour -- 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, 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?
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