Across the Fence #397
I
don’t like to use information I find on the Internet or receive in e-mails.
However, this story struck a cord with me and I decided to use the idea and put
my own life-experience spin on it.
An old man, probably about my age, was checking out at the grocery store. The young cashier suggested to the old man that he should bring his own shopping bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. He needed to learn to recycle and “go green.”
The old man apologized and explained, “We didn’t have the go green thing back in my earlier days.”
The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation didn’t care enough about the environment to save it for future generations.”
The old man thought about it for a moment and then told the young cashier, “You’re right, our generation didn’t have the go green thing in my day. Back then, people returned milk bottles, pop bottles, and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed, sterilized, and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled, not discarded. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of throwing them away when they ran out of ink, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But you’re right. We didn’t have the go green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an elevator or escalator in every store and office building. We walked or rode our bike whenever possible instead of getting in a vehicle every time we had to go a couple blocks. We even rode our bikes to school or walked instead of turning our parents into a 24-hour taxi service.
But you’re right. We didn’t have the go 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 electricity. Wind and solar power dried our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers, sisters, and neighbors, not always brand-new clothing and expensive designer jeans. When our jeans got holes in them, our mothers patched them up. Now people cut ragged holes in their jeans as a fashion statement. I guess we were ahead of our time and didn’t know it.
But you’re right. We didn’t have the go green thing back in our day.
When I was growing up, we had one TV and radio, in the house—not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen about the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of a football field. When we finally got a second channel, we had to get off the couch, walk over to the TV and change the channel by hand. When the TV quit working we had someone come and replace some bulbs, we didn’t throw it in the trash and buy a new one if it could be fixed.
In the kitchen, my mother blended and stirred everything by hand because she didn’t have electric mixers to do everything for her. She cooked on a wood stove instead of using gas and electricity. It was a way to recycle and make use of the dead trees.
But you’re right. We didn’t have the go green thing back in our day.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gas 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.
We drank water from a tap or direct from the windmill when we were thirsty instead of buying expensive water packaged in plastic bottles that fill up landfills. We accepted that a lot of food was seasonal and didn’t need to check the labels to see if its useful date was expired. We actually cooked food that didn’t come out of a packet, tin, or plastic wrap, and we even washed our own vegetables and made salads from food grown in our own garden. Believe it or not, we even butchered pigs, cows, and chickens to have our own meat.
But you’re right. We didn’t have the go green thing back then.
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 out where we were going. We used maps or just asked for directions. Yes, believe it or not, we did a lot of things back in those days to keep the environment and people healthy.
Isn’t it sad that some younger folks think us old folks were wasteful and hurting the environment just because we didn’t have the go green thing back then?
An old man, probably about my age, was checking out at the grocery store. The young cashier suggested to the old man that he should bring his own shopping bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. He needed to learn to recycle and “go green.”
The old man apologized and explained, “We didn’t have the go green thing back in my earlier days.”
The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation didn’t care enough about the environment to save it for future generations.”
The old man thought about it for a moment and then told the young cashier, “You’re right, our generation didn’t have the go green thing in my day. Back then, people returned milk bottles, pop bottles, and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed, sterilized, and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled, not discarded. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of throwing them away when they ran out of ink, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But you’re right. We didn’t have the go green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an elevator or escalator in every store and office building. We walked or rode our bike whenever possible instead of getting in a vehicle every time we had to go a couple blocks. We even rode our bikes to school or walked instead of turning our parents into a 24-hour taxi service.
But you’re right. We didn’t have the go 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 electricity. Wind and solar power dried our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers, sisters, and neighbors, not always brand-new clothing and expensive designer jeans. When our jeans got holes in them, our mothers patched them up. Now people cut ragged holes in their jeans as a fashion statement. I guess we were ahead of our time and didn’t know it.
But you’re right. We didn’t have the go green thing back in our day.
When I was growing up, we had one TV and radio, in the house—not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen about the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of a football field. When we finally got a second channel, we had to get off the couch, walk over to the TV and change the channel by hand. When the TV quit working we had someone come and replace some bulbs, we didn’t throw it in the trash and buy a new one if it could be fixed.
In the kitchen, my mother blended and stirred everything by hand because she didn’t have electric mixers to do everything for her. She cooked on a wood stove instead of using gas and electricity. It was a way to recycle and make use of the dead trees.
But you’re right. We didn’t have the go green thing back in our day.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gas 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.
We drank water from a tap or direct from the windmill when we were thirsty instead of buying expensive water packaged in plastic bottles that fill up landfills. We accepted that a lot of food was seasonal and didn’t need to check the labels to see if its useful date was expired. We actually cooked food that didn’t come out of a packet, tin, or plastic wrap, and we even washed our own vegetables and made salads from food grown in our own garden. Believe it or not, we even butchered pigs, cows, and chickens to have our own meat.
But you’re right. We didn’t have the go green thing back then.
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 out where we were going. We used maps or just asked for directions. Yes, believe it or not, we did a lot of things back in those days to keep the environment and people healthy.
Isn’t it sad that some younger folks think us old folks were wasteful and hurting the environment just because we didn’t have the go green thing back then?
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