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The Green Thing: the old and wise fight back

This was forwarded to me via email.

The modern version of “green” is so tame. When it comes to recycling material, living without disposable goods,  and leaving a smaller carbon footprint, the real experts are the long lived people who’ve been there, done that, and did it so much better, so long ago.

Jo

Eco-friendly TV anyone? (via Amberley Working Museum, England). Photo: By Les Chatfield

The Green Thing

The original low carbon lawn mower. Photo: Kallerna

In the line at the supermarket, the cashier told an older woman that  she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.” The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment.” He was right — our generation didn’t have The Green Thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink 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 nappies because we didn’t have the  throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling  machine burning up 240 volts — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not  always brand-new clothing. But that old 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 Western Australia. 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 a wadded up old newspaper 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 fountain 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 tram or a bus and kids rode their bikes  to school  or walked instead of turning their mothers into a 24-hour taxi  service. We  had one power point 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.

From Jeff G.

UPDATE: A late night Saturday posting effect meant I posted a pic of a low carbon mower… that had a motor… Fixed 😉

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