Checking out at the store, a 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 woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.”

You could see the clerk’s silent response on her face, “That’s the problem . Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”Hmmm. Is that so?

Back then, we returned milk, soda and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled. The same bottles were used over and over; they were truly recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have escalators 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, 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. Wind and solar power dried our clothes.  Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not  brand-new clothing  every season. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

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 one the size 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 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 and run on treadmills that use electricity. But 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. 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.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked. 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. Interesting since we didn’t have the green thing back then