Shame We Didn't Have the 'Green Thing' Back When

This is not original. It was sent to me by a friend… but boy, do I wish I’d written it because it’s sooooo true.

In the check out line of the grocery store, the young cashier suggested to the ‘seasoned citizen’ that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. (Probably the same person who got plastic bags banned outright ‘for the environment’ but more likely because they were too lazy to recycle them.)
 
The woman apologized, "We didn't have this green thing in earlier days."
 
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."
 
She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
 
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 truly recycled.
 
And grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags was as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) were 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 120-horsepower "hybrid" every time we had to go two blocks. Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes -– and kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
 
But that Next Gen girl is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
 
Back then, we had one TV in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a screen the size of a Monopoly board (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.

We also didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power and sometimes made money doing that for other people in the neighborhood as a summer job. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. And we took our bikes to school or walked instead of turning Mom into a 24-hour taxi service.

And people lived where they wanted because local govermment made sure land was available so that all types of housing was available. Housing and rents were far less expensive because supply always met demand. We weren't herded into urban corrals because NIMBYs, no growthers, 'coasties' and elitists (under the guise of saving the environment) didn't want anyone else living in their city.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or gopt our water from a plastic bottle and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole plastic-encased razor just because the blade got dull.

And we didn't tune out our parents or friends (usally) by planting ear buds in our skulls. We listened to music, sports, or the news on a hand-held transistor radio... which meant we could share a special song, cheer on the Giants together or (gasp!) talk to people at the same time.

Yeah, real shame we didn’t have the ‘green thing’ back then.