Alice, this land is your land

Protest music, such as Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” is powerful during hard times.

The Thursday before Thanksgiving, Alice Brock died. Alice owned a restaurant in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, about which Arlo Guthrie (Woody’s only son) wrote a song. It was called Alice’s Restaurant. The record was released in October 1967. The story is about how Arlo and his friends held Thanksgiving in a deconsecrated church with lots of trash. Being well-meaning youths, they cleaned out the debris, stuffed their Volkswagen Microbus, and drove to the dump. The dump was closed. They added theirs when they found a ravine with a pile of trash. Putting household waste in a ravine is not an unknown practice in the Berkshires. Officer Obie, complete with his eight-by-ten glossy photos of the dastardly deed, arrests them. The Piedmont blues ragtime guitar song becomes an anti-war protest song at the height of the Vietnam War.

Part of our Thanksgiving dinner tradition in the kitchen is listening to Arlo’s rambling and circuitous telling song for 18 minutes and 34 seconds.

On another song, Arlo sang in one-part harmony when the music came around the phonograph:

Coming into Los Angeles

Bringing in a couple of keys

Don't touch my bags if you please

Mister Customs man, yeah

Truthfully, after being shocked and stunned by the recent election, I was surprised to discover I had been defending the government. To be back, railing against it during the next Washington administration feels familiar, like old times. Today, the intrepid communities helping each other to speak truth to power with calls for justice are larger than what could fit in a VW Microbus. Bravo!

Love, keep your sense of humor, and more songs (cowbells optional)!

To quote Arlo: “Could we ever feel much finer?”

Raise a glass for Alice Brock, her restaurant, and intrepid dinner guests.

Let’s give thanks for warm fellowship, share, and pass the serving dishes with good cheer.

This land is your land.