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WASTEFUL OLD FOLKS
Email | Unknown | Unknown

Posted on 07/27/2011 7:01:13 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952

Sent with nostalgia...

The Green Thing

In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."

He 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.

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 throw-away kind. We 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; 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 a wadded up old newspaper 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 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza 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.


TOPICS: Humor
KEYWORDS: environment; green
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To: ken21

When I use a shopping cart, I *never* pop out the seat and use it for small items for exactly that reason.


21 posted on 07/27/2011 7:22:27 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: Arrowhead1952

Whadya mean, “older FReepers?” LOL


22 posted on 07/27/2011 7:22:27 AM PDT by truthkeeper (Vote Against Barack Obama in 2012!)
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To: ken21

We keep hand sanitizer in the car, and I dose up after every Walmart run, given the mess that place is always in....


23 posted on 07/27/2011 7:22:47 AM PDT by ErnBatavia (It's not the Obama Administration....it's the "Obama Regime".)
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To: Former Proud Canadian
" Whatever happened to paper grocery bags? "

I think it had something to do with saving trees or something like that, but the enviromentalheads were very short sighted in that, now we got the problem of animals getting caught up in plastic bags, plastic bags being blown around in the wind getting under cars sticking to the under side of the car's exhaust system, bags laying around littering the place where the bags don't decompose.
If you were to read into this young store clerk's response, and consider what Cass Sunstein has proposed, the liberals and a fascists dictatorship would do away with older people because they think old people are such a burden to society, that's what the new generation of the liberal world new world order thinks.
24 posted on 07/27/2011 7:23:18 AM PDT by American Constitutionalist (The fool has said in his heart, " there is no GOD " ..)
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To: momtothree

My mother saved aluminum foil, plastic bags, and ESPECIALLY wrapping paper. I can still see her painstakingly opening a gift so as to not tear the pretty paper.


25 posted on 07/27/2011 7:24:11 AM PDT by truthkeeper (Vote Against Barack Obama in 2012!)
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To: Former Proud Canadian
Whatever happened to paper grocery bags?

Paper doesn't grow on trees you know

26 posted on 07/27/2011 7:24:35 AM PDT by Oztrich Boy (New gets old. Steampunk is always cool)
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To: ken21
Yes, I've heard about the canvas bags. Whenever we go to the grocery store, we take the sanitizer pads and clean the handles really well.
27 posted on 07/27/2011 7:27:10 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952 (zero hates Texas and we hate him back. He ain't my president either.)
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To: Former Proud Canadian

Some stores have the option of paper, but you have to ask for them.


28 posted on 07/27/2011 7:28:29 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952 (zero hates Texas and we hate him back. He ain't my president either.)
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To: truthkeeper

Actually, I save the gift bags that we get and re-use them. A close friend of mine and I have been sending each other the same few gift bags for quite a few years now. We laugh because one has a cartoon character on it and we still use it for the older kids. Who cares what’s on the front of a gift bag... they want to see what is INSIDE! I guess a penny saved...


29 posted on 07/27/2011 7:29:24 AM PDT by momtothree
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To: DJ MacWoW; TheOldLady

Yes, and it was a good discussion!


30 posted on 07/27/2011 7:29:41 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: eastforker
Nope. Not a peep.

We had a "ragman" when I was little. He came through with a horse and cart. His horse was gray and named Dolly.

31 posted on 07/27/2011 7:30:09 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
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To: ken21

“3/4 of shopping carts have traces of fecal matter, most of it from infants.”

And this whole time I thought it was someone’s chocolate ice cream that melted.


32 posted on 07/27/2011 7:30:13 AM PDT by Rebelbase
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To: DJ MacWoW

I came from a family that did that too. We would even straighten nails and reuse them if they weren’t too rusty.


33 posted on 07/27/2011 7:30:51 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952 (zero hates Texas and we hate him back. He ain't my president either.)
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To: Sacajaweau

I have a button box. It’s an old cookie tin. And I have black and white thread on my desk. With needles already threaded. :-)


34 posted on 07/27/2011 7:31:41 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
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To: momtothree
He found that the plant was able to stretch and the undie band didn’t cut the plant.

Hey!! I resemble that remark, except I use strips of old tee shirts to tie the plants to the stakes.

35 posted on 07/27/2011 7:34:06 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952 (zero hates Texas and we hate him back. He ain't my president either.)
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To: American Constitutionalist; Former Proud Canadian

Do you remember the paper “sleeves” for a half gallon of ice cream so it wouldn’t melt before you got home? When did stores stop doing that?


36 posted on 07/27/2011 7:34:18 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
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To: DJ MacWoW; Arrowhead1952; trisham

That’s right. Use it up, wear it out, and make it do. That was how we recycled, and we still do.

You are absolutely right about the self-righteous “recyclers” these days. A lot of that green and blue bin stuff goes straight to the landfills anyway. Companies find that it’s too expensive to pay someone to sort trash that is virtually worthless.


37 posted on 07/27/2011 7:34:41 AM PDT by TheOldLady (FReepmail me to get ON or OFF the ZOT LIGHTNING ping list.)
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To: truthkeeper

As do I.

My wife and I talk about this sort of thing from time to time.

When we were kids, we were “green” before it was cool. Not so much to save the environment, but for simple economic reasons.

Of course that was before it was known that the free market system couldn’t possibly work, either. :)


38 posted on 07/27/2011 7:34:51 AM PDT by Pessimist
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To: Arrowhead1952

A cute article, but not without its inaccuracies.

For instance, a modern LCD HD television with a ‘screen the size of Montana’ uses only a small fraction of the electricity necessary to power one of those early CRT units with its ‘screeen the size of a handkerchief’.


39 posted on 07/27/2011 7:35:33 AM PDT by WayneS (Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. -- James Madison)
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To: DJ MacWoW

Mine is an old cookie tin, also. My mother had a gorgeous one...royal blue...a cookie tin also.


40 posted on 07/27/2011 7:36:10 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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