[ ::: ♥Keep_Mailing♥ ::: ]™ The green thing

How times have changed?

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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 her and explained,
"We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

The clerk 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, 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.

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 the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from
their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

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 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.

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.

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 pizza joint.

But we didn't even know about the green thing then.
We are truly sorry, but we just didn't know.