Tuesday 2 August 2011

The Green Thing

This was sent to me last week and I though Iwould share it with you.

> The Green Thing>
>
> In the line at the store, 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."
>
> She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.
>
> Back then, we returned milk bottles, lemonade bottles and beer bottles to
> the shop. The shop sent them back to the factory 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 market and didn't climb
> into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two hundred yards.
>
> 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 220 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 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 Yorkshire.
>
> 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 petrol 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 bus and kids rode their bikes
> to school or walked instead of turning their mums 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 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?
>

2 comments:

Pondside said...

That was a very good one! I think I must be getting old because I remember all of that.

Andrea said...

Thanks for this. It's wonderful. I'm probably part of the young generation when it comes to the things you describe. But I'm trying to live like it's the time before. I'm part of a group of people here in MA, USA trying to start a Transition group. Transition began in England. Do you know about it? Here's our website.
http://www.transitionwayland.org/