I received the message below in an email today. Generally speaking I hate these motivational message because most of them are lame or for sissies. I thought this one however was kind of interesting because of the fact that I can remember a time during my childhood where we were all in many ways clearly more “Green” than most of us think we are today. For instance, our milkman during the 60′s in north Toronto made his deliveries using an electric milk truck. I’ve never heard of or seen anything like that since.
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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 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?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a
lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.
Remember: Don’t make old People mad!
We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to
piss us off.
