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Earth Day Approaches; Read How Seniors Created Less Waste

Mar 30, 2020 06:00AM ● By Pamela Johnson
by Dave Dunbar, Contributing Writer (first appeared in Bellingham COA newsletter; used with permission)

We celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd and I remembered a story I had seen circulating on the Internet last summer, a story that truly celebrates the efforts our elders made over the years to take care of this earth simply by living less waste-filled lives. And here it is:
   
“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 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 our 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 house-hold 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 al-ways 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 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?
   
Please share this with another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart young person… we don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off… especially from a tattooed, multiple-pierced know-it-all who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.”

When I read this story I had thoughts of my mother sending me to school with my sandwich in a “milk bag” – yup, in Canada, a gallon of milk was always sold in bags. When we finished the bag of milk, my mother would cut the top, wash the bag and then reuse them as sandwich bags. Frugal and resourceful habits that were saving the earth before it was something we no longer have a choice about.
   
Yes, it is important to have young people like Greta Thunberg (a 17-year-old from Sweden) passionately plea for a viable future for this planet. But to those of you who lived through the depression and understand what it is like to go without and learned how to stretch the mighty dollar, thank you for all you did (and for what many of you continue to do) to care for Mother Earth.
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