KIDS & GRANDKIDS
the store, the young cashier told the older woman that she should
reusable grocery bags because
plastic bags weren’t good for
the
environment…….
apologized and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back
in my day.”The clerk responded,
“That’s what’s caused our problems today.
Your generation wasn’t green and
did not care enough to save our environment.”
He was right, that
generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.
then, they returned their 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 they didn’t have the green thing
back in that customer’s day.In her day, they walked up stairs, because they
didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery
store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower
machine every time they had to go two blocks.
But she was right. They didn’t have the green thing in
her day.
Back then, they washed the baby’s diapers because
they didn’t have the throw-away kind.
They dried clothes on a line, not in an
energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts – wind and solar power really did dry the
clothes.
Kids got hand-me-down
clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new
clothing.
But that old lady is right,
they didn’t have
the green thing back in her day.
Back then, they 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 state of Montana .
kitchen, blended
and stirred by hand because they didn’t have electric machines to do everything for
you.
When they packaged a
fragile item to send in the mail, they used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion
it,
not Styrofoam or
plastic bubble wrap.Back
then, they didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline
just to cut the
lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power.
didn’t need to go to a health club
to run on treadmills that operate on
electricity.
But she’s right, they
didn’t have the green thing back then.They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty
instead of using a cup or a plastic
bottle every time they had a drink of water.
refilled
their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the
razor blades in a razorinstead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got
dull.
“But they 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.
room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.And they 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.
generation laments how wasteful the old folks were just because they didn’t have the green thing
back then?