Old folks
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 this ‘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.
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 wadded
up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic
bubble wrap. 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.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of
using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink
of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of
buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a
razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because
the blade got dull.
But 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?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who
needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young
person.
We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t
take much to piss us off… Especially from a tattooed,
multiple pierced smartass who can’t make change without the
cash register telling them how much change to give back.
© 2020, Bob Culbertson. All rights reserved. On republishing any parts of this post, you must supply a link to the original post