A View On Modern Greeness
At the supermarket check-out, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologised to him and explained,
"We didn't have the green thing back in my day."
The cashier responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment." He 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 shop or milkman. They sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilised and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over again. So they really were recycled.
But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator or lift in every store and office building. We walked to the shops and didn't climb into a 300 Horsepower machine every time we had to go 200 yards. 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 disposable kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up kilowatts -- 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.
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 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 layers of old newspaper to cushion it, not polystyrene or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used to push a mower, it 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 water fountain (or God forbid - the tap) when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled 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, or needing some high tech razor blade that costs a fortune and still only shaves hair off .
But we didn't have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the train or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their parents into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical socket in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerised gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest resturaunt. But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we older folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?
Please copy this and pass it on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from someone a quarter their age.
