ON SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT

The phone rings.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hello Mother,” she says. “I just called to tell Father I’m his daughter for sure.”
“I hadn’t doubted it,” I say, recovering from the initial shock brought on by the news. “But what is it that has helped you reach such a conclusion?”
“well,” she says, “I just bought reusable bags at the grocery store.” Then she goes on to tell me how easy they’ll be to use, what with their good flat bottoms and convenient handles.
This is the woman who took on the job of doing our grocery shopping when she was a teen-ager. It was one more chance to drive the car and, so she said, better than cleaning toilets or mopping the kitchen. “But I won’t be using those cloth bags,” she said. “It’s too much trouble, and people look at you as if you’re weird, and none of the check-out people want you to bring your own bags. I’ll do the shopping, but I won’t use those bags.”
It was a crushing blow, more evidence of failed parenting, the proof that inter-generational transfer of values had fallen by the wayside. Her dad and I were part of the first environmental revolution, back in the seventies when we were devising all sorts of ways to save the world and at the same time, growing addicted to disposable diapers. A friend was selling home made canvas bags to raise money for the church and besides, we were disappointed that the strong paper grocery bags were being replaced by flimsy plastic. .
It’s a funny thing, the concept of saving the environment. Both of us started life on farms. There was no talk of composting then. They simply spread the manure on the fields. They piled up the garden refuse and waited for it to rot. Our non-compostables consisted mainly of tin cans which our fathers dumped in the coulees where they didn’t bother anyone. We’ve come a long way since then.
I remember how I despaired when the kids were in their teens. We were creating a lot more garbage than our parents had created when we were kids, but we had a composter out back and we washed plastic bags for re-use. In the summers we hung clothes out on the line. We wrapped their Christmas gifts in fabric, an insult to their childhood, they would say when they got together to share memories. You can’t tear open a cloth package. How can you experience the true joy of Christmas when, instead of the happy sound of ripping paper, you hear nothing at all as you daintily untie the knots and spring the safety pins?
I fought a valiant fight for the environment, but we humans are remarkably adaptable, and I was ready to gracefully accept defeat by the time she was old enough to make the weekly trip to the grocery store, cruising the aisles on her own with the list we had sent her. Now that she lives on her own, and is free to live her life out of the direct line of observation, I am happy with everything she does. Still I cannot help wondering what makes me happiest. Is it the fact that she has decided to save the world by getting cloth grocery bags, or is it that she has enough strength of character that she can call us up and invite us to laugh about it with her?