The Original Environmentalist

Life has thrown some financial curveballs lately, which is why I recently found myself rinsing off a piece of tinfoil. Rinsing tinfoil is something I said I would never do. I am not one of those eco-happy sorts who make a religion out of being green, sorting my trash into tri-colored recycling bins, or toting a "One Less Bag" grocery sack. In my lifetime, I have discarded football fields of tinfoil, Baggies that housed nothing germier than M&M's, and perfectly good brown paper bags. I have tossed slightly warped landscape timbers, filled countless black garbage bags with grass clippings, and disposed of enough aluminum cans to build a Smart car, and was even thrilled at throwing away a Coke can just to prove my point.

Rinsing tinfoil is not what I do; it is what my grandmother, Mimi, does. Talk about eco-friendly. A daughter of the Depression, Mimi refolded foil, washed out Baggies, scrimped on hot water, and turned off unused lights. Saving rubber bands and twist ties for some future use, Mimi was green and didn't know it.

She didn't walk the aisles of Whole Foods wearing Birkenstocks with natural fiber socks. She didn't spend three times as much for a sulfate-free dishwashing detergent. She didn't picket, boycott, or get politically active to prove her point. She simply conserved and preserved anywhere she could. Her parents couldn't replace broken items at Target or buy her the trendy swimsuit of the year for 1928. She wore hand-me-downs, crocheted multi-colored afghans out of bits of leftover yarn, canned tuna she caught while fishing in Mexico, and made jelly from the crabapples on her property. Nothing went to waste. Ever. Even avocado pits were stabbed with three toothpicks and set in water to take root. I remember these jars of pits, in various stages of growth, lined up on most of her south-facing windowsills. To my knowledge, no avocado tree ever resulted, but by golly, those puppies weren't wasted.

Her grandkids, me included, were sometimes annoyed by Mimi's attempts at economy. She didn't want us to lean our heads against the wall for fear we'd leave a grease spot and she would have to repaint. In August, we had to suck the air out of the bags of green beans she was freezing with the only occasional surprising drink of green bean juice for our efforts. She took us smelting in Camas, Wash., which is how we ended up chipping our free supper, eyeballs and all, out of the freezer for the next couple of years.

The point is, we can all learn from Mimi and be eco-savvy, and not just because times are hard and money is scarce. We don't need to embrace an elm or bow to the Green Deity. In fact, if we go back even further than Mimi, we might see that God is the Original Environmentalist. After all, He gave Adam the job of tending his surroundings and certainly advocates good stewardship of our existing resources. The passion for caring for the Earth should belong primarily to Christians, some of whom still believe that, despite the left's tiresome jawing otherwise, this is (still) our Father's world.