The Green Thing

A cashier told an older woman she should bring her own bags as plastic bags are not environmental.

The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."
The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care."

Yes she said but our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Then, we returned milk bottles, soda and beer bottles. Stores sent to the plant to be washed and recycled over and over. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, as 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.

We washed the baby's diapers as we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not a 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; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

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 state of Montana.

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 a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

We didn't fire up an engine to cut the lawn. We pushed mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working not in a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time.

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

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.

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 from 2,000 miles in space in order pizza.

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?