So true SO VERY TRUE!!!

We should have been thinking ahead;

While 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 older 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 for the 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 truly 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 wrapping for packages being sent through the US Mail. Or as gift wrapping, I clearly remember drawing and coloring unique designs for those special people I was giving a gift too. One of the most popular was using brown paper bags to use as book covers to protect them from potential harm, especially for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by students scribbling. We were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags, color or decorate and create our own artwork. 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 our television sets had much smaller screens, some 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 that quickly fill up landfills and will not begin to rot or otherwise decompose, recyclying itself in any manner into the earth, even 50,000 years from now. 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 and even the garden hose when we were thirsty instead of a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water (not only will those bottles be around 50,000 years from now, but also linked to brain tumors and other disease). At the very least we used a cup or a glass that we could wash and use again. 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 or maybe even two electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen gadgets or electrical appliances. We surely 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?

Be sure and share this with other selfish old people who need a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.