pointing green fingers

seriously, i am not that ancient!  i belong to generation x.  wikipedia has this to say about my generation:

"generation x, commonly abbreviated to gen x, is the generation boom after the western post-world war 2 baby boom ended.  while there is no universally agreed upon time frame, the term generally includes people born from the early 1960s through the early 1980s, usually no later than 1981 or 1982."

and because i am head over heels involved in this green thing, i was kinda touched by an article about pointing fingers regarding this green thing, the reason why i am sharing what i consider an interesting and a blatantly factual point of view from one of my generation:

"checking out the grocery store recently, the young cashier suggested i should bring my own grocery bags because plastic bags were not good for the environment.  i apologized and explained, 

'we didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days'.  the clerk responded, 'that's our problem today.  your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.'

she was right about one thing - our generation didn't have the green thing in 'our' day.  so what did we have back then?  after some reflection and soul-searching on 'our' day, here's what i remembered we did have. . .

'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 repeatedly.  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.
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 our clothes back in our early days.  kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

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 is right.  we didn't have that 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.


people took the bus, and the 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 2000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint, etc, etc, etc. . ."


but we didn't have that green thing back then. . .

we had green hearts and green minds. . .


ps.  ilysm, you fill my life with colours, green included.  bwahahaha!