Not everything used to be better, everything used to be different

The 60-ger years

Just 62 years ago, yet so much different! Indeed, we were not concerned about the environment when we were young. The locks were clean and you could see the fish swimming. We didn't have that green thing back then.

Then we had bottled milk, bottled soft drinks, and bottled beer, which we brought back to the store empty and cleaned. In the factory, they were sterilized and refilled. We really did recycling. We were sent to the fries shop with a pan to get fries for 6 people. But we didn't do that green thing at the time.

We walked up and down stairs because, except in the Bijenkorf, there were no escalators. We walked to the grocery, greengrocer and butcher shop, because there were no supermarkets and because we didn't have a car. We don't hoist into a gasoline slurping vehicle, every time we had to be 2 blocks away. My parents did not (yet) have a driver's license and therefore did not act as a 24-hour taxi service for the children. Green was not talked about.

Baby diapers went into the cooking wash, half automatic vane machine. Because disposable diapers didn't exist. Clothes were dried on the clothesline, and not in an energy-consuming machine that consumes 2000 watts continuously. Clothing consisted of discarels and entertained clothes. It came from nieces and nephews and moved on from the oldest to the youngest, until it was worn on the wire and patched up to the mourning. But it wasn't labeled “green”

We went into the sink once a week, in the kitchen, first my eldest sister, then me, then the youngest 2, who could at the same time. Mothers poured a kettle of water every time, to keep the temperature nice. We didn't have a shower where we could stand under for hours. We were washed with a washcloth every night. And had no idea what green was.