No Green in Her Day

I recently had an interesting exchange with my mother about my interest in Keep Virginia Beautiful, why we recycle, and the Green Movement.  We talked about our family and the way things used to be:

Her town was like many and had a local milk man.  You left empty bottles on your doorstep and fresh bottles of wholesome milk magically appeared the next morning.  I can remember being a child and taking soda bottles to the grocery and grabbing an ice cold soda out of a cooler full of chipped ice.  Seems that all of these bottles were taken back to the plants, washed, sanitized and put back into use.  Talk about recycling.

I have a candle that promises the aroma of “fresh linen”.  I knew laundry day at my great grandmother’s house from the sheets and overalls hanging from the line off of her back porch.  My cousin still lives in the house and we marvel at the hand-cranked washer that Mamaw used until her death.  The dryer was solar and wind powered.  I wonder what her EnergyStar rating would have been?

Back in Mamaw’s day they didn’t have gym memberships.  They walked.  They walked to the neighbor for coffee, they walked to town for the latest Sears catalog.  They used the catalog to buy the latest rotary mower (a truly green machine; no motor) which they pushed across the yard because the goats were getting into the neighbor’s flowers.  Green transportation at its best.

When the mower arrived it was packed in newspaper from a city far, far away from rural Virginia.  None of that fancy bubble wrap or styrofoam peanuts.

They didn’t need a fancy GPS or an iPhone to order dinner because having a meal delivered meant that someone stopped at the chicken coop on their way back to the house.  One electrical outlet per room and one television for the house.  A television with a screen the size of a pie tin.  Remember those?  A little metal pan that you could use for making desserts with fresh blackberries that you picked up on your walk back from the Sears outlet in town.  Then you washed it and made some more.

My great grandmother didn’t have a green movement in her day.  She didn’t need one.