Being green. How many of us old timers can relate to this story??

bigdee · Nov 23, 2012

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 young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment f or 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 truely 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 schoolbooks. 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 throwaway 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 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?

BlkY2k · Nov 23, 2012

Re: Being green. How many of us old timers can relate to this story??

Amen.

coolbri70 · Nov 23, 2012

Re: Being green. How many of us old timers can relate to this story??

i didn't consider myself an old timer but i remember those times, had to start asking "paper or plastic?" things were made to be repaired not thrown away back then, money didn't grow on trees and leaving a light on when you were the last out of a room could get you whipped

dwco5051 · Nov 23, 2012

Re: Being green. How many of us old timers can relate to this story??

I can remember my grandmother who was born in the 1880's taking the water when she rinsed a milk bottle out on her porch and pouring in into the flower boxes. She said it was wasteful not to reuse it. Even though she had an electric refrigerator she still used an icebox and I would carry the drip pan outside for her to water the flowers besides the house. She had city water at that time but being raised on a farm with a well the habit still stuck with her.

My father would not buy anything he could not make himself. I was the only kid in grade school that carried my lunch in a box made from a sheet of tin from the back of an old stove. Even though he was an engineer who worked on the Manhattan project and later in the Astro-nuclear field and made a good living we had a garage door opener made from the wringer section of an old washing machine and a spare motor.

I have always been somewhat the same practical way (my wife would describe it as cheap") She claims when we go to the scrap yard to turn in my smashed aluminum cans I am the only one there driving a $40,000 pickup. She is younger than me and doesn't remember when "food stamps" came in a ration book during WWII and cans were collected during scrap drives. Also recycling bacon grease and taking it in to the market and getting six cents a pound for it to be recycled into explosives.

I have been fortunate enough over the years to be able to buy anything I want or need but I still enjoy using a lawnmower I found out my the curb in town during trash days and putting an hour or two in getting it running than having paid for a new one.

southkogs · Nov 23, 2012

Re: Being green. How many of us old timers can relate to this story??

Humorously - I've never been all that "green" (though a conservationist). But several years ago, we started buying more veggies at the local farms and meat in bulk. We store most of our food in mason jars, and have stopped using plastic "zip" bags as much. An interesting side effect has been that we don't generate 1/2 the trash we used to as a family of 5, and we re-use most of what we have around the house.

... still don't think I'm "green" though

86 century · Nov 23, 2012

Re: Being green. How many of us old timers can relate to this story??

I am only 35 so I barely remember returnable pop and beer bottles.

My grandmother god rest her soul had a lot to do with me not being wasteful.
The lovely lady all of 4'8" tall reused everything she had a real thing about food being wasted. Thankfully most of it rubbed off on me.

I find it funny when you go to the store for two spark plugs they want to put them in a plastic bag big enough to put over my head.

NYBo · Nov 24, 2012

Re: Being green. How many of us old timers can relate to this story??

I think there is an issue of motivation. In the "old days," it was an economic necessity to be thrifty, coupled with the fact that many of our current wasteful products (e.g. plastic grocery bags) simply didn't exist. Plus, during wartime there were government-imposed restrictions on some commodities, as well as a sense of doing one's patriotic duty by conserving. I don't think there was a sense of "being green" behind this thriftiness i.e. it wasn't done for the purpose of preserving the environment.

That having been said, wastefulness drives me absolutely bonkers. I guess I'm in that middle generation (I'm 56) who had parents who lived through the Great Depression and instilled thriftiness on us, and who also saw the awakening of environmental awareness. So that may be what makes me doubly cheap er, frugal.

colbyt · Nov 24, 2012