You can't get anything at Alice's Restaurant !!!!

Now I'm sure many of you have heard of the famous "Thanksgiving Day Massacree" that occurred just outside of Stockbridge, MA around 1965 and was chronicled by Arlo Guthrie in the song Alice's Restaurant. For those of you who may have still been in a haze around then, Arlo is the son of Woody Guthrie.

So, to give you a little background here is the opening to the song:

This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's Restaurant. You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant. You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant. Walk right in it's around the back. Just a half a mile from the railroad track. You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

Now as the song says, the restaurant isn't named Alice's. In fact, it is named "Teresa's Stockbridge Cafe." And yes, it is around the back, just a half mile from the railroad tracks, just off Main St. in Stockbridge MA. 

Having heard this song many times over the years, and being in the area of Stockbridge, we had to search it out.

There was just one small problem with this. After walking round the back, half mile from the railroad tracks, we came to find out that the cafe was closed. We couldn't get anything at Alice's. BUT since we had grown up with this great story, we decided that the pilgrimage here was worth it.

But wait folks, that's not the end of the original story, or our story.

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in.   

 So of course we had to drive over to the church. BUT Alice and Ray and Fasha don't live there anymore. In fact, we don't really know where they live now. BUT, they sold the church to Arlo. It is now the Guthrie Center. Home to many traveling folk singers both old and young.

Now, Arlo wasn't home that day but we talked to some nice folks that let us roam around the place, except for the bell tower which we really did want to see. BUT, we were glad that we got to see where the fabled "Thanksgiving Day Massacre" had occurred. And do you know what folks????? They still celebrate Thanksgiving there in the church 50 years after the first one.

Now for those of you who may not have heard the whole, entire, and complete story of that first ever Thanksgiving Massacree, and the half ton of garbage, and the 27 8x10 color glossy photographs with arrows and circles and a paragraph on the back, then you have three choices.

 1. You can download the lyrics of Alice's Restaurant by googling it.

 2. You can hop over to iTunes or Amazon and listen to the song. All 18 minutes of it.  YES, it is 18 minutes long, which is probably why it never made it into the top 40 list.

3. OR you can go to YouTube and watch the movie version. BUT we have to warn you ahead of time..... It is one of the worst movies we have ever seen.

Grenville