Being "Green"

Discussion in 'Humor - Jokes - Games and Diversions' started by Minuteman, Aug 28, 2013.


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  1. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    Being Green

    Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older man , that he should bring his own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.
    The man 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 for 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 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 scribbling. 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. It was called a “reel mower.”
    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 in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing." 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?

    We don't need a lesson in conservation,
    especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced, smart assed kid who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much!
     
  2. kellory

    kellory An unemployed Jester, is nobody's fool. Banned

    Very true.
     
  3. Hex

    Hex Amateur Survivalist

    So true, and so ironic.

    They never do think that the older-aged folks are actually usually quite knowledgeable because of more life experiences (and the fact that they've been around longer), do they?


    Nice post. :]
     
  4. Icefoot

    Icefoot Monkey+

    Older folks were green before green was cool... Only they didn't call it that. They just called it life and didn't make a big fuss about it.
     
  5. Hex

    Hex Amateur Survivalist


    Agreed!
     
  6. Mindgrinder

    Mindgrinder Karma Pirate Ninja|RIP 12-25-2017

    This is all fine and dandy but most of todays old folks have a TV for a friend, can't figure out how to change inputs on it, fear the internet, fear young people and did not save a penny for retirement. While I love old folks for their wisdom and experience....I do hold a bit of a grudge for the creeping tyranny they allowed to sneak up on us while we were kids. They held the line on real battlefields but abandoned it on the home front. They put their kids in front of the TV as a babysitter, they consented to vaccines, they consented to fluoride in the water, they consented to GMO, they consented to ever higher taxation, they consented to illegal wars, they consented to being brainwashed. To be fair...they didnt know any better but ignorance is not a cultural flaw, it's a personal failure.

    Just sayin'
     
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