Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment…
The woman apologized to the young girl 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.”
The older lady said that 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 who sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled. So they really were recycled.
Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags; book covers for our school books.
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.
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.
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 (remember them?), not a screen the size of the living room.
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.
Back then, people took the streetcar or 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.
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? Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person. We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off…
Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can’t make change without the cash register telling them how much.
h/t gmbooks on Gab
[…] I Remember — NC Renegades […]
An absolutely fantastic article. The green dream is a religious cult for a devolved society of blue haired girls and soy boys.
I love those brown paper bags.
“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 (remember them?), not a screen the size of the living room.”
This could be carried on and on. Then ask the questions why you cannot afford to home school and send you kids to a public school.
“Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can’t make change without the cash register telling them how much.”
Love it. I guess her parents could not afford to home school her either.
Those was the days! Our entertainment came from the creek we played in or the chores we had. Kids nowadays are lazy and stupid.
Nice!
I remember well how we used to live. We had VERY little waste as we reused EVERYTHING that could be.
These tree sniffers haven’t a clue of what’s what. They’ve been handed everything since they were born and can’t appreciate a damned thing because they NEVER earned it or grew it.
I dare one of them tell me “how to conserve”. I dare them!
Consider:
So do they deserve our hate, our animosity? Or do they require some rebuking in the proper manner? If they were handed everything, someone has failed them!
And yes i know, i understand ‘some’ will not listen.
Fewer choices, better quality of life! i or 2 trips to the movies, or a drive-in date during the summer sufficed today’s need for a ‘next flick’ at least once a day. I laughed to keep from crying.
Brilliant. Thank you for sharing this… absolutely true!
I’ve read this article before and still enjoy it reading it, it brings back memories.
In my working career I was a logger in Northern California. All my work was away from home so I’d do my grocery shopping on Sunday morning before heading back to camp Sunday afternoon. At the checkout counter when asked “Paper or plastic?” my reply was always “Paper. My job depends on it”.
This was back in the day when FedGuv actually had a timber sale program, which I’m sure the pierced and tattooed checker gal would think was abhorrent. Unfortunately, she never lived in the days when logging was serious business and a really big wildfire was 20,000 acres. Nowadays, in Little Miss Green’s utopia, there are multiple 100,000 acre fires every year, and one in particular last year topped one million acres.
The problem today is that our polices are currently being directed by young people with no life experience, or by women whose judgement is based on emotion, or by people with the maturity of 12 year olds.
Yeah, I’ll take the ‘old days’, any day. And I won’t be lectured to by fools.
I recall one summer during work week before Boy Scout camp started. Alo the c;amp[ counsel’s were there getting ready for the Scouts. It was in the early ’50’s. A pick up came into camp before reveille. The driver said there was a forest fire and we all had to go help. My cousin was the state forester managing the fire fighting so he knew we were in camp. We were there for 48 hours non-stop until the fire was under control
Back then we cared for our renewable (green) resources.
I not only remember (having grown up then) there were a least 2000 things that could have been added to the article. Yeah, we were green without even knowing what it meant. We painted everything with lead paint and our toothpaste came in lead tubes. And we’re still here. Didn’t die. Went through every childhood infection and we’re still here. The change came in the 60s; and then it was all over but the shouting.
I remember and I liked it better.