Anyone age approx 35 or over should read this - just posted on (and pinched from) uphillracers

Checking out at the supermarket recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. I apologised and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days". The cashier 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, pop 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 shops and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two streets. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 240 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. 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 Wales. In the kitchen, we blended & 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 petrol 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 bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums 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 that the current generation laments how wasteful we older folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then? Please forward this if you wish so another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smarty-pants young person can read this!!

Get the feeling this will ring true for a number of regular contributors in BKCC

Spot on I say

Adrian

All true but the trouble is I now feel even OLDER...
My mum could make 2 pints of milk out of one,,,,,,,,, was a little watery on my cornflakes but did we complain, NO WAY..

Quote from: fullpint on 11, January, 2012, 06:19:35 AM
My mum could make 2 pints of milk out of one,,,,,,,,,

Now we call that 'semi skim' or 2% and pay the same as we do for whole milk .

Not mentioned was that back then we used our senses to tell if food was edible and didn't throw it away based on some arbitary date on the packaging!

Ah.......the good old days!!!

Best thing I've read for ages! (I know, I don't get out much)

All I would say is that I would print this, and hand it presonnaly to the individual that caused it's creation in the first place just to let them see things 'in perspective'!!

Or am I just getting old and grumpy?

milk on cornflakes  - you must have been the rich family I was told about who lived down the road  - we  just had water

Banana's - if they were available which was rare then you had to make a sandwich with 2 bits of bread and marge , or you couldn't have it

never leave food that was edible on your plate when I was a kid, you soon learnt that that would be your next meal if you did and now when I go to the cafe and see a the food that is left on young people's plates  - all I can think is that they have had it to good for far to long   

there wasn't the green thing then - recycling - well nothing was wasted neary everything was used for something else, not like today

things tend to go in cycles and the way this country is going , almost bankrupt - and  with the I want it now syndrome - its not gonna take long for these times to come back with a vengance - I just wonder if they will be so worried about this green thing when there's not enough food on the table to feed themselves

and it's coming, unless things alter dramatically   

Don't tell me, you could also go to pictures on the bus and buy some popcorn and get home and still have change fron a sixpence!!

Plus you had ice on inside of the windows because no central heating, everyone ate at the dinnerr table not sat infront of the TV, opps you never had TV only a wireless!!! We didnt have a TV until 1975, it was rented from "Radio Rentals",
plus if you got a bollocking from a policeman, you got another one from Dad when you got home.

And the teachers word was final, back then they could decipline the little angels, now everyone is scared to death of touching the little darlings in case of parents complaining, we didnt have parent governers sticking their noses in, didnt have all this Euro law, didn't have the stupid Human rights act, things were much simplar.  And we were not ruled by Euro nutters. I can't actually remember the cinema bit, but I can remember all the other stuff, and have listened to my Dad pasionately complaining for over 35 yrs.

plus bring back birching and hanging, have I missed anything?  oh yea, we had a stupid Labour government. 

And I am only 43.  What ever people who can remember the war must think of the sh*t state of things now?
M

Dixie

Your virtual soapbox is well and truly established.  BTW if you had sixpence you must have been one of the rich kids!!!

Took me 6 months to save up