The Green Thing

There's been a post I've seen cropping up in my Facebook feed recently, you may have seen it: 

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 young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment f
or 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 truely 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 schoolbooks. 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 on the brown paper bags.

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 throwaway 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 23,000 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?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off.

O.k., so apart from being scolded for "misunderstanding" my elders and the wonderful things they used to do, has anyone else had the feeling that this post is just a lot of "back in my day..." sort of talk? 

 

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so. This article that appeared in the Vancouver Sun  deconstructed this story to point out that many of the things that the writer touts as being something "green" that the older generation did that was infinitely superior to our way of life and thinking was actually something that was invented or promoted by the very oldsters who are complaining about young people these days. 

 

The other thing I couldn't help but think about when I read this story was that the generation who is on the defensive here as not being "green" was in fact responsible for some pretty cruddy and not-at-all green things. I'm thinking specifically of the post war generation who developed and permitted the use of DDT and allowed companies like DuPont and Monsanto to usher in the Pesticide Era in the 1950s. Agriculture would not look the way it does today if it weren't for people like Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz under Richard Nixon who dramatically changed the landscape of American Agriculture from 1971 forward. 

 

The way things are today is a consequence of the innovations of previous generations who bought into Dupont's slogan from 1935 "Better Living Through Chemistry" and all of those chemicals are now creating toxic load on our bodies and in the environment. 

 

The generation who proudly tells us they were green before green was cool were the ones who ushered in the Supermarket (which presumably this woman was shopping in) that necessitated the widespread use of paper and plastic bags. Theirs was the generation that embraced TV dinners and disconnection from family farms in favor of convenience and "better living." 

 

I'm not going to go so far as to say that I'm terribly good at being "green." I don't use cloth diapers, though sometimes feel as though I should. I don't hang my wash to dry on a line, though many of the people in my community do. I just think that this story is one that is the older generation looking back and saying - look how wonderful we were, you young people are so wasteful and have no idea when you talk about being green. 

 

I honestly wish that the post war generation had reconsidered DDT and pesticide use, had rejected chemical birth control and had not brought into being some of the "conveniences" we have today. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I have a deep respect for my elders and their values and their contributions to the world - I just don't think this story considers the issue beyond making older Americans feel like they've got one up on the youngsters. 

 

I think we all can be more honest with ourselves than that.