THIS is where we get the term "Enviroweenies"
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!
I'm so sorry we don't know the author because he NAILED it!
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PSSSSSTTT!!!! Real Men STILL do Valentines too! Thank GOD for those real men! You know who you are and you make the world worthwhile.
Labels: environmentalists, green, green thing, PC, thetowncrier
