This is so true.... Being Green
She is 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, sterilized and refilled, so the same bottles could be used over and over. 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 most places and didn't climb behind the wheel of a 300-horsepower vehicle whenever we had to go two blocks. 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 hundreds of watts -- we used wind and solar power to dry our clothes back in those days. Kids wore hand-me-downs from their brothers or sisters instead of getting brand-new clothes all the time. 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 our food by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send by 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 muscle power. We exercised so much by working that we didn't need to go to a health club and run on treadmills operated by 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 wanted a drink of water. We refilled fountain pens with ink instead of buying a new ones and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole thing just because the blade got dull.
But we didn't have the green thing back then. People took the streetcar or bus to go downtown and kids walked or rode their bikes to school 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 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint. But isn't it nice of the current generation to point out how wasteful we old folks were because we didn't have the green thing back then?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lecture on conservation from a smart-ass young person... We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off. END
Z: Pris sent this and I thought it was terrific............do you remember NOT BEING GREEN?! And being WAY more GREEN than the loons like to say they are today?! :-)
33 comments:
I wish I had been so clever as your friend, Pris. Very good!!!
I WANT those plastic bags from the grocery store. I use them as litter pan scoops and as trashcan liners.
Now, about greenies who use various technological devices....In my experience, these people are very wasteful. They replace their devices at the drop of a hat! Hell, the bedroom TV set must be well over 10 years old. I can say the same for most of my stereo equipment. I drive a 2009 Hyundai Elantra (The only new car that I've ever owned!), a 1996 Crown Vic, and a 2000 Mustang. Most of the greenies I know have a lot of new "stuff."
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
I started mowing the lawn as a kid with what was called a "reel" lawnmower, powered by my arms and legs.
And bags at stores? I ALWAYS choose paper because I use them a firestarters for the stove in winter.
BZ
Hilarious! Thanks for the laugh, Z!
We still have one of those old, boxy TV sets. It refuses to die, and I refuse to throw it away just because it is not a modern flat panel.
Do you remember that EVERY medicine cabinet had those slots in the back where you threw the old razor blades into. Can you imagine replacing one of those old cabinets and finding hundreds of old razor blades behind them?
In my world "green" means "inexperienced".
Like that clerk.
This made me laugh out loud!
I know a woman whose son is in therapy because of his abject concern over Global Warming. Therapy!
Am I too young to be such a curmudgeon? LOL!
xo
Andie
Anyone else remember snow shovels?
Silverfiddle: you just might be a redneck if your working TV set is sitting on top of your non-working TV set.
...or, you just might be a redneck if your front porch collapses and more than two dogs die.
Just thought you might want to know, what with that ancient TV 'console' sitting around your house, even though it still technically works.
Cons on Fire, Pris didn't write it but I was delighted to have it brought to my attention so I could share it!
AOW, my neighbor also wants the plastic bags for her dog poop on walks.....
bz, SEE? You are recycling, too!
SF, I have two older TVs, too...not a box, but they're deep and still work well!
Rita, I'm not sure I ever did see one like that...good solution!
Ed...that's like when GAY meant HAPPY! :-)
Andie, THAT IS AWFUL. There are also children in NYC who apparently weren't sleeping because their teachers were teaching that NYC would be under water soon. This is another of the leftist lies which is doing such damage.
My fave is that Gore's the one preaching rising ocean levels yet he owns a home in Monterey, CA, practically right ON the water line. I suppose Democrats think they're immune from trouble because they can legislate it away :-)
Did you all hear the Sandy survivors are in shock that the gov't is removing porta potties from areas where they can get fed, etc., when they still have nowhere to go? It's absolutely astonishing.
Right Z, I wish I had written it. It's so true!
Me too, BZ. My Dad appointed me to mow our lawn when I became a teenager, with a rusty old lawn mower! That was the only time, every week, when I wished I had an older brother!!
I use the paper bags for recycling stuff, then carry them out to put in the recycling bin. I also use them to wrap parcels I have to mail. And as the article says, I too used them to make schoolbook covers. Yep, I had my children do the same thing.
Anyway, I got a good laugh as I read this. It sure brought back
a lot of memories!
As for checkout, I just left a Krogers, and they have a person at each lane who bags.
When I was in the military, the exchange did that, but they were kids working for tips.
I think that was also true when I was a kid.
Pris, my grandmother used tothough they were quite financially comfortable. But she'd lived through the deprivation after the Armenian genocide at 9 years old, came here and met Grandpa, who came to the States at the age of 9, and they lived in Troy, NY and built up 3 of the nicest high-end grocery stores in town. So, they didn't suffer much from the depression because of the stores (gave sugar and flour free to folks in town) but Grandpa worked HARD to grow those stores having started from nothing (and no English)...so, while they were very generous, she knew the value of a dollar.
The GREEN fans today don't know how to stretch a dollar or what to do to REALLY help the environment in such simple and sensible ways as described in this post, they just know Republicans are hopeful that all trees fall down, the waters stay murky and air is impossible to breath. :-)
So z, because we have a couple of anecdotal statements about childhood neurosis we should ignore the issues of pollution, resource utilization, climate change, food supply and other aspects of stewardship
Ducky, thanks for proving my point; please read the last paragraph of my comment above yours.
Do you understand the point of the post? People have been saving and watching and recycling since way before the left invented it. Sort of like the computer and Gore, come to think of it.
If you have to ask if we don't believe that we need to be good stewards of the earth after having read this post and the comments, there isn't much I can respond with.
Not politely, anyway.
thanks.
http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-gop-policies-led-fiscal-cliff-blowup-222503056--politics.html
wait till you see that.
See, character and the constitution and sticking to American values and proven successes from the past don't matter to a leftwing journalist; the fiscal cliff is apparently ALL the GOPs fault and its their 'intransigence' which is going to kill our economy.
Not the astonishing amounts Obama's borrowed or the bailing out of insolvent companies which supported his election and certainly not the housing market when liberals promised a house for everyone (regardless of ability to pay..my GOD the poor suffered for that, didn't they. And they still voted for him).
do yourself a favor and read the article.........this is what Americans are being told.
If I read this correctly, the "young clerk" was gainfully employed in a retail operation which furnished plastic bags. Presumably she was not working there under duress. So, if that little SNOT accused [me] of compromising [her] environment I would have summoned the Store Manager to see why this employee was saying one thing while doing another as she insulted the customers.
I saw this post back in January and I added some of my own in red.
I'll add them below.
And we left with our groceries in paper bags, you know the B I O D E G R A D A B L E kind?
When we turned 18, we likely got some clothes or some money, we didn't get a financed trip to the plastic surgeon to buy some Barbie Doll boobs making us all look like a relative of Dolly Parton. Our mothers and grandmothers faces and breasts fell as God intended them too. They didn't have them drawn back, pushed up and their lips implanted to make themselves looks some cartoon character like this.
We had stray mutts as our pets, not some designer dog born in a disgusting puppy mill paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars feeding an industry that should never have been created to begin with.
Neither our house, school or family car had air conditioning, which forced us outside in the hot summer and kept us from being obese children playing tag, hide and seek and climbing trees.
Our schools were just schools. They didn't have swimming pools and NFL type football fields. Our football fields were just FIELDS with a few bleachers lined up on the sides. They were the same fields that we used to play field hockey in summer school.
"We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty "or the garden hose in the summer "instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. "
This blog is well done and BRILLIANT, thank you for writing it.
May I add something that may be off topic.
Anyone stupid enough to belong to the same political party as Barack Obama will never get my respect.
Anon; I'm thinking with the likes of you, it's not a problem for Obama voters.
@Rita
Jeezuz Rita....you left out catching fire-flies in a glass jar on those summer nights... ;-)
And this fear of armed cops around schools? I can't remember a time when Officer Schumaker scared us kids when he directed traffic and helped us cross the streets...when he had a .32 on his hip. We respected that.
@Rita,
We didn't have to network our computers to play a game of baseball.
We had to go knocking on doors to see who could play in the vacant lot.
@Anon
"Anyone stupid enough to belong to the same political party as Barack Obama will never get my respect."'
Fully 51% of the country fits that category.
And they'll kill the remaining , productive 49%...wait and see.
Their "utopia" will be like Mao's...disarm, reeducate, depopulate and intern opposition. And O'Bullshits quotes for his books will come in little red covers for quick access.
Right Chairman O?
Oh yeah, Imp. The lightning bugs were our version of video games. I still remember the wringer washer my mom used that drained into the basement sump pump. The coal furnace my brothers had to keep stoved up in the winter. The sprinkler top my mom inserted into the old Coke bottles to sprinkle the clothes she would iron. The bed sheets blowing in the wind and how good they smelled from the fresh air, nit from some bottle of Downey.
It's funny to look back on those days and realize just how precious they were. Today's kids will only think of what the latest video games was popular. We try to make good memories with our grandchildren. Playing hide n seek until late into the night.
@ Z
Months after Sandy...O'Bullshits "Katrina" and thousands of Americans still dumpster diving...no power...no heat...no homes to speak of...shhhhhh....can't hear that...poor white folks suffering this Christmas can we?
Food shipments banned by the dictator BloomTurd....facing looting...facing economic disaster....and the puke in Chief is off on a $4 million vacation. His 4th this year.
Too bad Sandy didn't hit New Orleans...then we'd see real action. But those folks in Staten Island and Rockaway, NY....can suck wind, eh "O"?
I tried to feel empathy for these poor people....but they all voted for thew POS in chief, didn't they?
And now they face looting and thugs...but allowed their right to defend themselves to be taken from them by the likes of BloomTurd and Cuomo.
Who now advocates confiscation of weapons. Maybe when he sees the predators actually cannibalize those poor dummies...will he relent?
@Rita
"The sprinkler top my mom inserted into the old Coke bottles to sprinkle the clothes she would iron. The bed sheets blowing in the wind and how good they smelled from the fresh air, nit from some bottle of Downey."
Ahhhh...and I can still smell the freshness of those sheets being ironed in the kitchen...and the sprinkler bottle...yea.
Plus running between the clothes lines and hearing the creaking of that wheel that held and fed the line that the clothes hung from...LOL
@Rita
"The coal furnace my brothers had to keep stoved up in the winter..."
I can still hear the sounds of that coal going down the cellar chute to the coal bin.
And I knew it was time to feed the beast.
Imp said:
"Who now advocates confiscation of weapons. Maybe when he sees the predators actually cannibalize those poor dummies...will he relent?"
I always wonder, Imp, what the advocates of gun control, and confiscation of them, would think about having them taken away from their own security guys?
They have to know that there are deranged, evil, inherently mean people out there, or why else would they feel the need of protection for themselves. and their families, surrounding themselves with armed security squads?
It will be a miracle if our country ever comes even close to being what it used to be when it comes to values, a sense of dignity, and respect for the rights of others.
And no, 'political correctness' is not the same thing, no matter how they try to spin it.
Our children are missing out on so much, and all of the video games, money, entertainment, and instant gratification in the world will not make up for it.
A child's imagination knows no bounds, and can come up with a myriad of fun things to do if given half-a-chance.
The 'typewriter' I built for myself out of a block of wood, bottle caps, and a few nails gave me more hours of fun, and a sense of accomplishment than one can imagine, too.
I even tied a string around the leg of a June bug, and 'flew' it, but maybe I shouldn't mention that for fear of being reported to the High Sheriff of June Bug Protection, or something.
You never know. :)
We should be encouraging the libtards. Let's encourage them to run as fast as they can down the path they are on. It's the only way they will learn.
AND it will be a hell of a lot funnier to watch.
Go libtards! GO !
Rita, great ones! Thanks for the addition.
Anonymous...too true.
I've seen this item before. It's been around for several years, but it's always good to see it again. There's one part of it, though that I think most people miss. It's a pretty harsh indictment of American industry, don't you think?
All the improvements the article makes fun of didn't come to us because of spoiled kids. Industry invented them for out "convenience," and people being people are always attracted by anything that promises to make life "easier."
TV, itself, the computer and cell phones came to us thanks to industry.
We've been trapped or seduced into doing lots of things that aren't very good for us, and feeling we have to own lots of expensive stuff we never really needed.
Helen Highwater
Merry Christmas, Z!
Jim
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