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Huck Finn, a truly perceptive gentleman from the upper midwest, sent this
one on young vs. old...

This is so true.

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much 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."

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

She 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.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we
reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage
bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks.
This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use
by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to
personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.

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
throwaway 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.

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 (Do you 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 gas
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
in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did
before the green thing.

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 sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks
were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss
us off...especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't
make change without the cash register telling them how much.
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