At the checkout counter, a young cashier suggested to a much older gentleman that he should consider bringing his own grocery bags, explaining that plastic bags are harmful to the environment.
The man smiled and replied, “Back in my day, we didn’t have this ‘green thing.'”
With a raised brow, the cashier remarked, “Well, that’s the problem. Your generation didn’t care enough about the environment to protect it for us.”
The older man nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right; we didn’t have this ‘green thing’ in our day,” he said. “Back then, we returned glass milk bottles and soda bottles to the store. They’d get sent back to be washed and reused over and over again. They were recycled, but we didn’t have a label for it.”
The cashier just listened as he continued. “Grocery stores packed our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for things around the house. We’d even make book covers out of them to keep school books in good shape. But, no, we didn’t call it ‘green.’
“We walked up the stairs because we didn’t have escalators everywhere. We walked to the store instead of jumping into a high-powered car for every little errand.”
He went on, chuckling a bit. “When it came to clothes, kids wore hand-me-downs. And diapers? We washed them, no throwaways filling up the trash. Our clothes dried on a line, letting the sun and wind do the work. Kids played outside until the streetlights came on; they weren’t plugged into gadgets all day. And we did our fair share of pushing lawnmowers, using a bit of elbow grease instead of gasoline.
“We drank from fountains when we were thirsty, filled up ink pens, and replaced razor blades instead of tossing them. We took public transportation and walked to school instead of turning our parents into 24/7 chauffeurs. And yes, we had one TV, usually in the living room, and a single outlet per room.”
He looked back at the young cashier with a gentle smile. “So yes, I guess we didn’t do the ‘green thing.’ We just did things a little differently.”