Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much 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 young clerk cursedly responded, “That’s our problem. Your generation didn’t care enough to save our environment for future generations!”

She was right. Our generation didn’t have that “green thing” in our day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles, and beer bottles to the store. The store then sent them back to the plant to be washed, sterilized, and refilled so it could be the same bottle over and over again.

But alas, we didn’t need 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 schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our one-time by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on those brown paper bags.

But, unfortunately, we did not have this “green thing” back then.

We walked upstairs 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 needed to travel two blocks.

But, woefully for us oldsters, she was right. We didn’t need the “green thing” in our day.

Back then we washed the baby’s diapers because the throwaway kind wasn’t invented yet. We dried clothes on a clothesline and not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters and not always the brand new clothing fashion.

But, regrettably, for us, 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 our TV had a small screen, the size of a handkerchief. Not a TV 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 today’s Styrofoam and 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 power – human power. We didn’t need a health club to run like a mouse on treadmills that, by the way, operate on electricity.

But, unlucky us, we didn’t need the “green thing” back then.

Back then we drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or plastic bottle. We refilled writing pens with ink instead o buying a new and we replaced the razor blade instead of throwing the whole thing away.

But, lamentably for us, we did not have the “green thing” back then.

Back then people took the streetcar or bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mom into a 24-hour taxi service in the family’s overpriced SUV which cost what a whole house did before this “green thing.” We had one electrical outlet in a room and 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 to find the nearest burger joint.

But it is truly sad that the current generation blames us old folks
because we didn’t have this “green thing.”

So, please simply smile back at those young cashiers, often tattooed along with multiple piercings, who can’t make change without the cash registers telling them.