That “Green Thing”…

This is a bit of a read so feel free to pass, but I think it’s a really good thing to remember.

That “Green Thing”

Checking out at the store, a young cashier suggested to a much older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The older woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have that ‘green thing’ back in my day.” The young clerk responded, “Yeah, you didn’t have the green thing back then, and that’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to safeguard our environment for future generations.”
She was right. That older generation didn’t have the “green thing” in their day. Back then, they returned milk and soda bottles to the store, which the store sent back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. They really were recycled,
but no, they didn’t have the “green thing” back then. Grocery stores bagged your groceries in brown paper bags, that were reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags being the use of brown paper bags as book covers to protect schoolbooks. Then kids were able to personalize their books on the brown paper bags. But, it is too bad they didn’t have the “green thing” back then.
They walked up stairs, because there wasn’t an escalator in every store and office building. They walked or rode a bike 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” back then.
Back then, they washed the baby’s diapers because there were no throwaway kind. They dried clothes on a clothes line, not in an energy-gobbling clothes dryer. Wind and solar power really did do the job. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that young lady was right; they didn’t have the “green thing” back then.
Back then, families had one TV (if any), 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!
In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn’t have an electric machine to do every task for them. When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used wadded up old newspapers 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. Hard work was their exercise so they didn’t need to go to a health club to run on expensive treadmills. But she was absolutely right; they didn’t have the “green thing” back then. They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty instead of filling landfills with endless plastic water bottles every time they were thirsty. They refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying new pens, and replaced the razor blades instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But no, they didn’t have the “green thing” back then.
Back then, kids either rode a bus or their bikes to school, and rode their bikes or walked to ball practice if possible, instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family’s $45,000 SUV or van, which cost more than a whole house did before the “green thing.” They had one electrical outlet in a 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 a satellite 23,000 miles out in space just in order to find the nearest pizza place! But isn’t it sad they didn’t do the “green thing” back then? NO! What is sad is the current generation lamenting how wasteful the old folks were just because they called it “frugality” rather than the “green thing” back then?