The Green Thing
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?
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