Old Lady to Young Lady - "the green thing"

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

The 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 recycled. But we didn't have the green
thing back in our day.

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 clothes 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
blades 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. 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 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the
nearest pizza 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?