# Didn't Have The Green Thing Back Then



## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Reposted from facebook"

Ted Nugent

Yesterday at 1:56pm ·

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.

The woman apologized to the young girl 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."

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day.

The older lady went on to explain:

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 school books. 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 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.

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 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'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 blade in a r azor 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?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in 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... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Forgot to mention&#8230;&#8230;

handmedowns

patching clothes till the patches had patches

using bread sacks to get a little more life out of rubber boots

the hundreds of uses for a burlap bag then later plastic feed sacks

I remember the local elevator paid a quarter a bag so they could refill feed sacks, then homeland security did away with that as terrorists could contaminate the bags???


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Amen Ralph!

Regards, Mike


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

mlappin said:


> Forgot to mention&#8230;&#8230;
> 
> handmedowns


Nope.....he covered that.

Regards, Mike


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

I remember the bread bags. Used them during sugaring season.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Flour sacks....my mother said there was nothing more versatile than the flour sack.....she said her and her siblings had many a pair of underwear made from flour sacks....


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

The thing I remember about blue jeans was wearing the knees out playing....mainly baseball. SO momma would sew patches on the knees and I would wear those out.

I can remember her coming home with some "iron on" denim knee patches and she was so looking forward to those because of the much quicker repair. They lasted about 15 minutes.

Regards, Mike


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## Uphayman (Oct 31, 2014)

In my "yout", before the green thing, you didn't have to pick up other people's garbage left up and down the roadsides.......McDonalds, Wendy's, KFC.


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## Uphayman (Oct 31, 2014)

Vol said:


> The thing I remember about blue jeans was wearing the knees out playing....mainly baseball. SO momma would sew patches on the knees and I would wear those out.
> 
> I can remember her coming home with some "iron on" denim knee patches and she was so looking forward to those because of the much quicker repair. They lasted about 15 minutes.
> 
> Regards, Mike


Man I used to get scolded for that. Was one of those early in life complexities........no wonder I'm screwed up. Now the kids pay extra for pre- ripped jeans.

Beam me up Scotty !!!!


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

Wore my knees out playing "farm" with my toys. Must be to young for the patching part as I just wore them in the summer to the barn but man would I get in trouble if I wore my school pants for playing.


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Dad tells a story of how when grandpa would get bagged flour, grandma told him to get the "pretty bags" because she made those into her weekday house dresses. Just a fact of life back then. Reuse egg cartons when maternal grandma sold eggs, feed sacks also became patches in the granary where rats chewed holes.

My mom still patches my jeans when they tear, wife refuses to do it. I have a pair of jeans I got the year I graduated high school (albeit a little snug in the mid section)


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Vol said:


> Nope.....he covered that.
> 
> Regards, Mike


Strange, had to reread it again specifically looking for handmedowns.


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

Grew up using the out house, because the indoor plumbing was for special occasions and cost money to pump all that water.

Toilet paper in the out house was the last years yellow pages. One quickly learned that the phone book section that was white was softer than the yellow section.

And yes it was a two seater


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

DSLinc1017 said:


> Grew up using the out house, because the indoor plumbing was for special occasions and cost money to pump all that water.
> Toilet paper in the out house was the last years yellow pages. One quickly learned that the phone book section that was white was softer than the yellow section.
> And yes it was a two seater


DS, guess I was raised really up scale, we had a three seater, but used the Sears catalog. 



stack em up said:


> My mom still patches my jeans when they tear, wife refuses to do it. I have a pair of jeans I got the year I graduated high school (albeit a little snug in the mid section)


Stack, you can do like my wife's brother does, wear them a LOT lower. He brags that he still wears size 28 (at 5' 7" and 210 pounds), but they need to be the ones with 'stretchy' sides. He swore at the guy fitting his tux, about his waist not being a 44!! (Of course the tux pant's waist line was about 6-8 inches higher than where he was use to wearing pants at.)

On the plus side, if you wear your pants that low, you will be in style I believe. 

Larry


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

r82230 said:


> DS, guess I was raised really up scale, we had a three seater, but used the Sears catalog.
> 
> Stack, you can do like my wife's brother does, wear them a LOT lower. He brags that he still wears size 28 (at 5' 7" and 210 pounds), but they need to be the ones with 'stretchy' sides. He swore at the guy fitting his tux, about his waist not being a 44!! (Of course the tux pant's waist line was about 6-8 inches higher than where he was use to wearing pants at.)
> 
> ...


Sears catalog would have been too tempting to want to dream about buying something new! 

Much better to see all the local plumbing contractors that were never to get the business.

Forgot to mentioned that most of the money was buried around the property, just in case there was another great depression.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

mlappin said:


> Strange, had to reread it again specifically looking for handmedowns.


Meaning you did find it or not?

"Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing"

Regards, Mike


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Vol said:


> Meaning you did find it or not?
> 
> "Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing"
> 
> Regards, Mike


Nah I found it, guess reading comprehension is going along with flexibility and the eyesight.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

How about heat using firewood?

We burned 10-12 cords of wood a year, which we cut/split ourselves, to heat our home?

Lots of good healthy exercise and no oil being burned.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

DSLinc1017 said:


> Grew up using the out house, because the indoor plumbing was for special occasions and cost money to pump all that water.
> 
> Toilet paper in the out house was the last years yellow pages. One quickly learned that the phone book section that was white was softer than the yellow section.
> 
> And yes it was a two seater


We had a two-seater outhouse as well You ALWAYS want "top bunk" though!!!!









Our is (still standing and in use from time to time).

I had seen a variation of that one before and remember the mention of the flour sacks for dresses and underduds n such. I remember it making note of canning food in jars and reusing the jars instead of buying canned goods that are trucked in burning fuel and leaving behind empty cans to fill the dumpster.

Skip A Rope, Mark

PS, I just reread my post...that was not intended to be construed as OUR outhouse. It was just one that always makes me chuckle. Ours was two seater and eventually got a bolt down toilet seat for a reduction in splinters.

So before yall point out the obvious that two-story one is from the innerweb...lighten up.


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## TJH (Mar 23, 2014)

These young kids don't know what it was like to grow up around someone that lived through the depression. Sadly there is not too many of them left. Back in my grandma's final years once a month I would go get me and her a KFC dinner for Sunday( My grand parents bought the "home place" in 1928 and paid for it through the depression). After she went home to be with Lord and we were cleaning out her house I opened a cabinet and there was all those cups the mashed potatoes and cole slaw came in all washed up and neatly stacked in the cabinet. Nothing was thrown away! Can't help but wonder how many tree huggers today do that. They think there saving the universe by peeing in a bottle and pouring it on the garden.


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Yeah these "millennials" absolutely disgust me with their ignorance. Need brought down a notch or ten


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I caught grief the other day for heating with wood, idjits don't seem to realize that its the original recycling.

Something along the lines of burning wood is bad for the environment blah blah blah carbon released blah blah blah.

They don't seem to realize if you leave a dead tree to rot, its going to release the same amount of carbon as burning it, so might as well get some free heat instead of paying for it. Sure I added a little more carbon in the process of cutting it up with a chainsaw, but I can't see that being anywhere near as much as the carbon released by drilling a well, building the pipeline, maintaining the pipeline then having the utility driving around every month reading meters, then transporting the bill to my house.


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

JD3430 said:


> How about heat using firewood?
> We burned 10-12 cords of wood a year, which we cut/split ourselves, to heat our home?
> Lots of good healthy exercise and no oil being burned.


We still mainly heat with our own harvested fire wood. However I do admit, I do like the little button on the wall that instantly makes it warmer. Particularly when it's 20 bellow out and the wind blows hard through this big old farm house.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

DSLinc1017 said:


> We still mainly heat with our own harvested fire wood. However I do admit, I do like the little button on the wall that instantly makes it warmer. Particularly when it's 20 bellow out and the wind blows hard through this big old farm house.


Outdoor wood boiler, I keep wood in it and the wife can turn the dial in the house to whatever she wants.


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## RockmartGA (Jun 29, 2011)

Don't forget, years ago, things were built to last. Many of us on Haytalk routinely discuss equipment that is forty or fifty years old - and we're STILL USING IT.

Today, not so much. In most cases, it is cheaper to throw something away and buy new than repair.the old. The washer and dryer that was bought when my wife and I got married lasted 33 years. We'll probably be lucky if the replacements last ten. Even then, it will probably be due to a $2 diode on a circuit board that would cost more than a new machine.

Designed obsolescence, I think is what they call it.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

I can remember using a cistern, had to wait for it to rain for a few minutes, then run outside and switch the lever over on the down spout. My mom/grandmother use this original 'soft' water, for laundry, bathing and we used it to wash up our hands/face before putting our feet under the table. Unfortunately, my brother and myself had to take our baths last (something about my sisters didn't seem to get as dirty, as us boys).

But this was before the green thing I guess.

Larry


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

DSLinc1017 said:


> We still mainly heat with our own harvested fire wood. However I do admit, I do like the little button on the wall that instantly makes it warmer. Particularly when it's 20 bellow out and the wind blows hard through this big old farm house.


One side benefit to being a farmer and a builder is I get a lot of free trees to cut down and convert to firewood.

I'm thinking of starting a 3rd business I get so much of it!!

Just not enough hours in the day to build, farm, coach 2 high school sports, and start a firewood business.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

I hate firewood...been doing it for years...I am tired of it... not enough money in it, even at $200/cord...yet I still do it..


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Vol said:


> The thing I remember about blue jeans was wearing the knees out playing....mainly baseball. SO momma would sew patches on the knees and I would wear those out.
> 
> I can remember her coming home with some "iron on" denim knee patches and she was so looking forward to those because of the much quicker repair. They lasted about 15 minutes.
> 
> Regards, Mike


Those work good IF you know how to do it...

Being a fatboy I tend to wear out my britches in the seat of the pants area... when they "let go" I can iron on a patch myself in about five minutes with a good hot iron and get the fabric to lay down smoothly and evenly...

BUT, to seal the deal, you then have to take the pants to the wife's (or sister in laws usually) sewing machine, get set up, and sew "roundy-round" like you're cutting a field of hay with an old 3 point sickle mower to 'stitch down' the patch... otherwise that crummy glue won't hold for very long...

Between the glue AND the stitching-- they'll hold til the patch wears through...

I've had good luck doing it that way!

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Uphayman said:


> In my "yout", before the green thing, you didn't have to pick up other people's garbage left up and down the roadsides.......McDonalds, Wendy's, KFC.


Still don't...

That's what Mexicans and "community service" convicts are for...

Just doing my part to keep 'em busy... LOL

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Uphayman said:


> Man I used to get scolded for that. Was one of those early in life complexities........no wonder I'm screwed up. Now the kids pay extra for pre- ripped jeans.
> 
> Beam me up Scotty !!!!


Keira pulled on some thin ***** jeans her momma got for her somewhere that the knees have already split, so she was using them for work jeans around the farm...

Noticing that they are still a DARK blue (denim hasn't even had time to fade yet) and she was griping about her knees being cold, I suggested some iron-on patches and then sew them down with the machine-- she's been learning how to sew from momma... At any rate, it'd renew the pants enough she could still wear them to school...

"Nope", she said, "We're not allowed to wear clothes that are torn or patched"... I was like, "you're kidding me, right?" She told me, "No, they won't allow you to wear patched clothing or stuff with holes in it in school-- they'll make you go to the office and change into sweats or scrubs or call home and make your momma bring you something else-- you aren't allowed to wear it in school."

Well, having driven a bus, I guess I can see the idea... Kids, once they reach middle school- junior high age and start noticing the opposite sex, soon develop a set of kids that like to show "too much skin" and will use ANY means to do it-- from wearing stuff that was too small for them two years before (bustin' out all over) to wearing stuff that is provocatively cut or torn, usually intentionally, to create "windows" in their clothing to show more skin... The rush to the "grunge look" and wearing stuff that was worn out, torn up, or later INTENTIONALLY BOUGHT with dirt/crud ground into it or holes cut/abraded into it BRAND NEW was a little after my time... but I knew about it from my kid sister and brother when they were still in school...

I guess at some point the school officials started insisting that 'torn' stuff be patched, and then, knowing kids looking for a way around the rules, kids probably started coming in stuff that "appeared" patched but the patches were "tearing loose" (crummy iron-on only patch jobs) so they could STILL "show too much skin" and flout the rules... so I guess their solution to that was to "outlaw" patched clothes!

I commented that I would've probably ended up dropping out of school-- most of what I wore was patched or worn or torn in SOME way or another... not "provocatively" to be sure; just well worn from farm work! BUT, I guess that's not even on the radar anymore...

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

TJH said:


> These young kids don't know what it was like to grow up around someone that lived through the depression. Sadly there is not too many of them left. Back in my grandma's final years once a month I would go get me and her a KFC dinner for Sunday( My grand parents bought the "home place" in 1928 and paid for it through the depression). After she went home to be with Lord and we were cleaning out her house I opened a cabinet and there was all those cups the mashed potatoes and cole slaw came in all washed up and neatly stacked in the cabinet. Nothing was thrown away! Can't help but wonder how many tree huggers today do that. They think there saving the universe by peeing in a bottle and pouring it on the garden.


EXACTLY!!!

My MIL and my Grandmother lived through the Depression. (My FIL was an engineer on B-29's in the Army Air Force in WWII; my wife is the youngest of her siblings and 3 years older than I am, and I'm the oldest of my siblings, so hence the 'generation off' thing).

Grandma was SO tight about money she'd REUSE toilet paper! If she went #1, she'd put the small wad of toilet paper she used to "dry off her parts" on the rim of the toilet brush container, to use it again later. Thankfully she just flushed the paper she used on #2!!! I chastised her about that several times... it wasn't particularly sanitary and of course it did create an aroma during hot summer weather as the pee evaporated out of the paper in our unairconditioned house in the heat and humidity near Houston... She did it until she passed away, though...

When she was getting older and feeble and stuff, we were cleaning out her back room-- she never threw ANYTHING away hardly... she had like a five gallon BUCKET full of buttons and stuff she'd kept in all kinds of old containers of every type and kind in that back room, all her tax papers for about the last 30 years (you only *have* to keep them for seven) and I found old gin tickets and stuff in the drawers from the 70's... ginning charges and bale weights from over 40 years ago... I also found her gasoline ration stamps and sugar ration stamps left over from World War II... I asked her "what are you gonna do with those?? You think you'll cash them in in the next world war?? Won't be any gasoline or sugar to be had anyway!"

When my MIL passed away, we disposed of about a pickup-bed full of boxes with fabric scraps in them... I think she kept every scrap of fabric she ever came across. She loved to sew, and did a lot of projects and made cancer hats for patients at the hospital with her ladies sewing group and all that, so she was "using the stuff", but she had enough there for about five lifetimes... We distributed as much as we could give away to other sewing ladies and family members we knew that could possibly use it (and would take it) and ended up tossing the rest...

Grandpa was the same way... STILL have some old "oiling shoes" hanging on the barn wall in the lean-to by the barn... used to run them on the front of his old NAA Ford tractor with the 2 row cultivator-- they used to use them to spray "oil" (distillate) on weeds under the cotton in the early 50's before the "real" herbicides really came out and took their place... Why he held on to some of that old junk I'll never know... Like they'd have to go back to that stuff at some point... can you imagine spraying KEROSENE on weeds nowdays?? How much would THAT cost, or how far under the jail would they throw you?? LOL

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

TJH said:


> These young kids don't know what it was like to grow up around someone that lived through the depression. Sadly there is not too many of them left. Back in my grandma's final years once a month I would go get me and her a KFC dinner for Sunday( My grand parents bought the "home place" in 1928 and paid for it through the depression). After she went home to be with Lord and we were cleaning out her house I opened a cabinet and there was all those cups the mashed potatoes and cole slaw came in all washed up and neatly stacked in the cabinet. Nothing was thrown away! Can't help but wonder how many tree huggers today do that. They think there saving the universe by peeing in a bottle and pouring it on the garden.


Hey I still save those! I guess I'm terminally cheap too-- Grandma rubbed off on me.

Actually the current red-topped KSC "tupperware" that their side items come in are VERY useful... I use them for food items for Keira and Betty's lunches at times, but ALSO use them around the hobby bench-- they're handy for mixing wood filler and water to brush it on rockets and balsa parts, mixing glue or paint, etc. Since they will "close up tight" you can use them to keep stuff from drying out, and to contain small parts like electronic components, small screws/nuts/bolts, bits of balsa or metal or other stuff used in hobby work, etc. Very handy and best of all FREE...

Get funny looks when I wash them out in the bathroom sink at KFC when we're on the road, though-- usually we only get KFC when were on our way to/from Indiana, for the most part...

Later! OL J R


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