11-25-2021, 02:03 PM
Here's the boring backstory behind mine and this one takes me on a trip down memory lane.
In 1967-ish, I was 12 years old and going through some pretty tough times for a kid but I had a loving middle-class mom and step-dad that while pretty normal in most ways, were also characters in their own right. Since my step-dad (Fred) came into my life when I was 10, we’d had to move 4 times in two years because of my “problems” and all of us were damn tired of it so we moved to a new state with the aim of staying put and putting down some roots. Those alive during those times and remember, things in this country were pretty political and turbulent with riots and mass anti-war protests with a sense of great uncertainty and change in the air but people had finally started waking up and our society and culture began evolving beyond the zeitgeist of the 1950s. I was going through a lot of personal stuff then too and yet another big life change moving states had all of us kind of open to new things.
My mom would have been mid-30s and Fred a few years older and if it weren’t for the fact they both had normal straight jobs and we lived in a nice house in a good neighborhood and had nice cars, they fancied themselves as cool, hip, open-minded and somewhat bohemian and could have maybe even been free spirited hippies or beatniks in another life? Today we would probably label them progressives or liberal and even though they weren’t particularly political or radical, they were certainly influenced by the cultural atmosphere of the day.
My mom was an incredible woman of amazing strength, creativity and dogged stubbornness but indeed a free spirit, an artist, a creator and a fighter a good 7/8 years into her 1960 given ten more years to live prognosis and knowing her time was short, she made sure to not miss a minute of it. Her charge ahead zest for life, experience and happiness undoubtedly influenced much of my own personality.
Fred was her 3rd husband with a bit of his own dubious background experience causing somewhat of a third eye awakening that the American dream wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. With Masters in theology and psychology, pastor of a large Lutheran congregation in Southern California and a wife and three sons, a scandalous affair with a parishioner cost him everything in life, his home, his family and his faith and he was “on the road to find out” and rediscover himself so to speak when he’d met my mom a few years prior so he more or less was living life on his own terms as well.
I’m sure my situation also may have had something to do with them being outwardly normal while discretely counterculture? I suppose having a kid like me that most considered broken or defective and them not really giving two shits what other people thought about it might have steered them toward more liberal mindsets but I digress…
Point is, as far as parents go they were pretty cool. They loved Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in and the Smothers Brothers which were pretty edgy and controversial shows for the day, listened to rock, folk and all kinds of music and my mom was a Star Trek fan and drove a GTO. They had parties and had eclectic and diverse friends and in 1967 when this song came out, they were immediately drawn to it and it turned into a family Thanksgiving tradition to listen to it every year.
And that song was Alice’s Restaurant Massaccree or just Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie, son of the iconic American folk singer, Woody Guthrie.
It is catchy, humorous 18 minute long anti- war protest song with a story about getting arrested for illegally dumping trash on Thanksgiving and dealing with an arrest record for littering when called to the draft board. Not a Thanksgiving went by without this album being played on the living room stereo and when the movie based on the song came out in 1969, I can remember standing in line with my folks and a bunch of weirdos waiting to see it. (I also remember that was the first time I saw tiddies on screen!)
So it may be a quirky thing and even though I lost my parents 40+ years ago, I still always listen to Alice’s Restaurant on Thanksgiving day and remember them and those heady days. I spend my holidays alone and don’t do anything special or celebrate in any way but I do listen to Alice’s Restaurant on Thanksgiving and reflect on the fortunate events and good things in my life.
Happy Thanksgiving fellow Americans regardless of your politics even if the story behind the holiday we all grew up with is kind of bogus. Not without our problems, no doubt, but we do still live in a great country and I am thankful for that.
___________________________
Afterthought:
This song also planted a seed that a few years later became a fear and potential worst nightmare scenario in my overworked and anxious adolescent brain. What if I got drafted and had to go sit on the Group W bench? (song reference)
By the time I was approaching 18, they had basically stopped calling people up and shortly after I turned 18 they did away with the draft entirely so there was never really any threat but the fear of what a shitshow it would be if I did have to deal with this was something that haunted me thanks mostly to this song. I had been living as a girl for three years at that point (1973) and on hormones for a year and when I did turn 18 and by law had to register with the Selective Service Bureau, it was a very depressing and dreadful moment.
Does anyone else have any quirky holiday traditions?
In 1967-ish, I was 12 years old and going through some pretty tough times for a kid but I had a loving middle-class mom and step-dad that while pretty normal in most ways, were also characters in their own right. Since my step-dad (Fred) came into my life when I was 10, we’d had to move 4 times in two years because of my “problems” and all of us were damn tired of it so we moved to a new state with the aim of staying put and putting down some roots. Those alive during those times and remember, things in this country were pretty political and turbulent with riots and mass anti-war protests with a sense of great uncertainty and change in the air but people had finally started waking up and our society and culture began evolving beyond the zeitgeist of the 1950s. I was going through a lot of personal stuff then too and yet another big life change moving states had all of us kind of open to new things.
My mom would have been mid-30s and Fred a few years older and if it weren’t for the fact they both had normal straight jobs and we lived in a nice house in a good neighborhood and had nice cars, they fancied themselves as cool, hip, open-minded and somewhat bohemian and could have maybe even been free spirited hippies or beatniks in another life? Today we would probably label them progressives or liberal and even though they weren’t particularly political or radical, they were certainly influenced by the cultural atmosphere of the day.
My mom was an incredible woman of amazing strength, creativity and dogged stubbornness but indeed a free spirit, an artist, a creator and a fighter a good 7/8 years into her 1960 given ten more years to live prognosis and knowing her time was short, she made sure to not miss a minute of it. Her charge ahead zest for life, experience and happiness undoubtedly influenced much of my own personality.
Fred was her 3rd husband with a bit of his own dubious background experience causing somewhat of a third eye awakening that the American dream wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. With Masters in theology and psychology, pastor of a large Lutheran congregation in Southern California and a wife and three sons, a scandalous affair with a parishioner cost him everything in life, his home, his family and his faith and he was “on the road to find out” and rediscover himself so to speak when he’d met my mom a few years prior so he more or less was living life on his own terms as well.
I’m sure my situation also may have had something to do with them being outwardly normal while discretely counterculture? I suppose having a kid like me that most considered broken or defective and them not really giving two shits what other people thought about it might have steered them toward more liberal mindsets but I digress…
Point is, as far as parents go they were pretty cool. They loved Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in and the Smothers Brothers which were pretty edgy and controversial shows for the day, listened to rock, folk and all kinds of music and my mom was a Star Trek fan and drove a GTO. They had parties and had eclectic and diverse friends and in 1967 when this song came out, they were immediately drawn to it and it turned into a family Thanksgiving tradition to listen to it every year.
And that song was Alice’s Restaurant Massaccree or just Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie, son of the iconic American folk singer, Woody Guthrie.
It is catchy, humorous 18 minute long anti- war protest song with a story about getting arrested for illegally dumping trash on Thanksgiving and dealing with an arrest record for littering when called to the draft board. Not a Thanksgiving went by without this album being played on the living room stereo and when the movie based on the song came out in 1969, I can remember standing in line with my folks and a bunch of weirdos waiting to see it. (I also remember that was the first time I saw tiddies on screen!)
So it may be a quirky thing and even though I lost my parents 40+ years ago, I still always listen to Alice’s Restaurant on Thanksgiving day and remember them and those heady days. I spend my holidays alone and don’t do anything special or celebrate in any way but I do listen to Alice’s Restaurant on Thanksgiving and reflect on the fortunate events and good things in my life.
Happy Thanksgiving fellow Americans regardless of your politics even if the story behind the holiday we all grew up with is kind of bogus. Not without our problems, no doubt, but we do still live in a great country and I am thankful for that.
___________________________
Afterthought:
This song also planted a seed that a few years later became a fear and potential worst nightmare scenario in my overworked and anxious adolescent brain. What if I got drafted and had to go sit on the Group W bench? (song reference)
By the time I was approaching 18, they had basically stopped calling people up and shortly after I turned 18 they did away with the draft entirely so there was never really any threat but the fear of what a shitshow it would be if I did have to deal with this was something that haunted me thanks mostly to this song. I had been living as a girl for three years at that point (1973) and on hormones for a year and when I did turn 18 and by law had to register with the Selective Service Bureau, it was a very depressing and dreadful moment.
Does anyone else have any quirky holiday traditions?
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.