This is a bit long but worth the read. A little something for our Environment students to think about!
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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 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 school books. 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. 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 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. 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 2,000 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?
Certainly worth the read -- lots to think about here. I agree with the basic message of this story, but I think it sort of depends on which generation we're talking about. For example, our grandparents' generation, who I think are the protagonists here, knew from growing up during the Depression and/or the War that nothing should go to waste -- they didn't have to see it as a "green" thing, because responsible resource use was (and still is) common sense. This seems to describe the world that our parents were born into, the one they inherited.
With that in mind, I'd love to be able to walk to a grocery store like they did, but it wasn't my generation that decided that maze-like suburbs and box stores were a better idea. I'd love to be able to rely on public transit in Sarnia, but it wasn't my generation that decided to tear up the trolley line to the beach, cut bus lines, or cut half the VIA trains. It also wasn't my generation that decided that plastic bags and TVs the size of Montana were the way to go, that designer clothes should be marketed towards 10-year-olds, or that decided to ban outdoor clotheslines.
The world that the protagonist is describing sounds awesome, and I'd love to live in it, but between now and then, something went wrong. I don't know which generation caused things to go wrong, and I also could never prove that it was an entire generation's fault, or that they did it out of malice for our environmental welfare as opposed to plain old greed or scientific advancement. Plastic bags probably seemed like a good idea at the time because of their durability, but it took us a while before we realized that there were environmental implications. Hindsight is 20/20, and we need to learn from our collective mistakes.
After all, our generation has been born into some shiny, sexy habits that are going to be hard for us to kick since we can't remember a time like the one described here. We need the wisdom and memories of our elders as we reclaim a lifestyle that got thrown away.
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What do you think?
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