Black Friday

Dear Hank,

November 26, 2010

The Day after Thanksgiving

Black Friday

We were driving to Richmond for dinner with the relatives (and then on today to Blacksburg for the game Saturday.)

While looking for something on the radio I heard, "We were sitting there on the Group W bench."

Now for those of you who do not know this line it comes from the recording Alice’s Restaurant. It was recorded in the late 60’s by Woodie Gutherie’s son, Arlo, and was released just before he went to Woodstock.

It tells the tale of an event on a Thanksgiving day when Arlo was in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and had a Thanksgiving dinner at his friend’s Alice place. Before dinner he took a truckload of trash to the dump. The dump was closed so he threw it over the side of the road and was arrested for littering. This gets you halfway through the recording because at this point Arlo tells us that what he really wanted to tell us about was the draft. At the time of his making this recording the war in Vietnam was in full bloom. The United States had instituted a conscripting of young men to join the armed forces; “The Draft” as it was called. He recounted his going to the draft board where they determined if he was suitable for military service.

There are many lines from the recording that are memorable and repeated by those of us who have come to love the recording.

“Father rapers”, “color glossy 8 by 10 photographs with circles and arrows on the front”, “you want to know if I’m moral enough to burn villages and kill people after being arrested for littering?”, “Kid, we don’t like your kind”, “I want to kill. Kill. Kill. Kill…”

Arlo’s timing is exquisite.

I heard the recording from Group W bench to the end. The DJ said this was his 24th year (maybe longer) of playing Alice's Restaurant on the radio on Thanksgiving. The DJ also said that Arlo purchased the old church where the event took place and they do various charitable works from out of there, including a Thanksgiving dinner. All proceeds go to research into Huntington’s Corea, a terrible genetic disease that killed his father.

Peace,

B

Ps The Rant will continue next time.