The Green thing

[R J]

Have to admit that I did these things - both growing up and as a young adult.


 
   
In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that 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.”
 
That’s right, they didn’t have the green thing in her day. Back then, they returned their milk bottles, Coke bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, using the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.
 
But they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.
 
In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.
 
But she’s right. They didn’t have the green thing back in her day.
 
Back then, they washed the baby’s diapers because they didn’t have the throw-away kind. They 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 that old lady is right, they didn’t have the green thing back in her day.
 
Back then, they 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 pizza dish, not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn’t have electric machines to do everything for you. When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used wadded up newspaper to cushion it, not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
 
Back then, they didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
 
But she’s right, they didn’t have the green thing back then.
 
They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty, instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled pens with ink, instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
 
But they didn’t have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus, instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they 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 that they didn't have the green thing back then.

[olddog1946]

Goes to show there really was "Good" in the good ole day's......I remember how cool we were when we got our first motorized lawnmower....

[BonS]

I remember not only pushing a reel lawn mower but also trimming around chain link fences with hand clippers. Blowers? How about a broom. A one car garage was all a family could need. It sure beat parking in the alley. Trash? We burned it in a barrel.

Nice post R J

[X Ring]

RJ, I'm not nearly old as you but I remember a lot of those things.  My first job was in a grocery store when I was 15 bagging groceries in paper bags then putting them in the customers' cars.  Also had to rack bottles, take the empty 2 qt Coke and Pepsi bottles and put them in the wooden crates to be loaded on the Coke or Pepsi truck.  KInda miss those days and still can't figure out how we're better off with all this plastic.

Marty

[Kendall]

Great Post and so very true....

[bogator]

  RJ, I remember all of those --THANKS for the reminder--GOD BLESS--

[Jabba]

All that and gas was $.35 per gallon and a candy bar cost $.05.

Hell, I am 42 and I remember a lot of that.  Of course my parents were born in '29, and both grew up really poor.  Hell they were poor until about the time I hit Jr. High. 

I still like the reel lawn mowers.  I wish I could find a nice one and keep it working.

Jabba

[Mr.BubblesVRCCDS0008]

The lady down the street from us had a small fortune in her garage was full of 1 gallon glass milk jugs. We tried to get her to let take them off her hands several times.

[solo1]

Oh Yeah!  I remember when I was in my early teens, I earned money mowing the grass.  I rode my bike across town to my aunt's house and used her 'Armstrong" push mower, hand trimmer, and spade, to mow and clean up the yard and trim the grass on the sidewalk.  For that she paid me .50 cents and gave me a 'sweet sixteen' bottle of cream soda or 'rock and rye' to drink.   Although I was too young to drive then, .50 cents would buy two gallons of gas.

[Chrisj CMA]

The scary thing is......if the government doesnt get a clue soon........our grand kids are going to grow up to:

human power tools
hand me down clothes
home grown food
walking to school
terrible roads, so these new fangled "smart" dumb cars wont work

and they will be talking about....."remember the days grandpa told us about when they had good roads, cool cars and motorcycles, power tools, stores to buy fresh food.........ect"

perspective

[old2soon]

R-j said it before-i'm 66. Had a paper route for a number of years.We had about 95% of our customers store the papers for us and picked them back up once a month and took them to the scrap yard. Course we didn't call it recycling then-we were called junk men. Put folding money in my pocket at a young age. Recollect everything that was mentioned. Thanks for the memory jog.

[John Schmidt]

Oh my, does that bring back some memories. Paper routes, reel lawnmowers, hand clippers, one car garage for the one car we had, only one telephone and in the kitchen usually. And Sunday afternoon I would spend listening to the radio and all those neat 15 minute adventure or western programs....one after another; Hopalong Cassidy, Jack Armstrong-The All American Boy, Roy Rogers, Green Hornet, Bobby Benton and the BRB Riders, Sky King....can't remember them all. TV? What's a TV....that was nothing but two letters in the alphabet. We didn't get our first one until I was in high school....got all of two stations if we were lucky.

And talk about "making do" with what we had, how about the thrill of rationing during WWII. You couldn't really go anywhere, you couldn't afford it and if you could....you didn't because you didn't want to wear out your tires. You couldn't get new ones...or inner tubes. For years, dad had saved one old inner tube he used all through the war....it had 37 patches on it and still held air. He kept it to help him remember how good we had it afterward. He was a school superintendent back then, Army wouldn't take him because of his job. Thankfully, we lived on the edge of the school grounds so the car only got used to go to church on Sunday. Strange, we never had a flat on Sunday. Guess that was our reward for being good attendees....or whatever you want to attribute it to.

One thing I could never figure out about Jack Armstrong. The program would end with something like him falling in a pit full of rattlesnakes and you had to wait until next week to see what happened. Then next week it always started up with "after Jack got out of the pit full of rattlesnakes......"  So, I wanted to know how he got out but it was never fully explained. Been troubling me ever since.  

[Bobbo]

The scary thing is......if the government doesnt get a clue soon........our grand kids are going to grow up to:

human power tools
hand me down clothes
home grown food
walking to school
terrible roads, so these new fangled "smart" dumb cars wont work

and they will be talking about....."remember the days grandpa told us about when they had good roads, cool cars and motorcycles, power tools, stores to buy fresh food.........ect"

perspective

Can you explain what the government has to do with this?   ???

Today's convenience driven, throw-away society was brought to us by good old fashioned capitalism and marketing.  That is what drives advances in technology, not government intervention.

[Westernbiker]

The scary thing is......if the government doesnt get a clue soon........our grand kids are going to grow up to:

human power tools
hand me down clothes
home grown food
walking to school
terrible roads, so these new fangled "smart" dumb cars wont work

and they will be talking about....."remember the days grandpa told us about when they had good roads, cool cars and motorcycles, power tools, stores to buy fresh food.........ect"

perspective

Can you explain what the government has to do with this?   ???

Today's convenience driven, throw-away society was brought to us by good old fashioned capitalism and marketing.  That is what drives advances in technology, not government intervention.

GOOD LORD GIVE IT A REST!

[Garfield]

I think my father was one iof those milk men