[cmitch]

Not a joke but more of a cultural statement and the sadness that today's youth are being taught that previous generations were much more wasteful than the present.

Green Thing

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much
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 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.

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) 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 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 in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost
what a whole house did before the "green thing." We had one
electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power
a dozen applliances. 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 that 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...

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much
to piss us off...especially from some little smart ass who can't
make change by counting fingers and toes without the cash register
telling them how much.