We Didn't Have "The Green Thing" Back In Our Day

Every once in a while we get something in our email inbox that makes us chuckle.  This little story came through my inbox recently about a woman standing in a grocery line being lectured and shamed about why plastic bags are not good for the environment.  

For those of us in California struggling with the new plastic bag law, you might get a laugh out of this.

You better think twice about lecturing an older person about bringing bags to the grocery store.

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery  bags, because plastic bags are not good for ...the environment.
The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my earlier days.”

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for  future generations.”

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day.

The older lady went  on to explain:

Back then, we returned 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 we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household  garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown  paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.

We walked up stairs because 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.

But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers 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 state of Montana. We also didn't have 10 remotes to control all of our devices, we simply got our butts off of the couch and changed the channel. 

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline 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. 

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 in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the"green thing." 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 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger 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?

If you have any additional gems from the old days, pop them in the comments section below. We would love to hear about them.

Image Credit: Photo by Stefan | CC BY