Arlo Guthrie recorded his most famous song, “Alice’s
Restaurant” in October of 1967. In the song, he talked about Alice and Ray and
Fasha the dog, as well as Officer Opie, and the twenty-seven 8 by 10 color
pictures, with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.
If you want to take another trip down memory lane, here is the
song in its entirety:
Alice's Restaurant - Original 1967 Recording - YouTube
The song, though, really was not about Alice or the Thanksgiving dinner that could not be beat.
It was about the draft.
On my way back home after basic training, we stopped in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. I saw the location where the restaurant used to be,
where the police station is, and where the church building stands.
Originally
built as the St. James Chapel in 1829, the structure was enlarged in 1866 and
renamed Trinity Church. Ray and Alice Brock purchased the property in 1964 and
made it their home. The building has had several owners since the early 1970s.
After
four years of high school in Stockbridge, Arlo graduated in the spring of 1965
entering Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana the following fall. His
college career was short lived, however, and he returned to the Berkshires in
November of 1965. He stayed with his friends, Ray and Alice, at the church
during the Thanksgiving holidays. The rest, as they say, is history.
Over time, Arlo bought the old Trinity Church featured in the
song, and converted it to an interfaith church in 1991. The structure was
renamed the Guthrie Center.
If you would like a blast of nostalgia, there is also an
Alice’s restaurant in Tucson.
https://alicesrestauranttucson.business.site/
Stockbridge is on the farthest west side of Massachusetts,
roughly 160 miles from Plymouth, where another Thanksgiving dinner took place
in 1621.
The actual history of what happened in 1621
bears little resemblance to what most Americans are taught in grade school,
historians say. There was likely no turkey served. There were no feathered
headdresses worn. And, initially, there was no effort by the Pilgrims to invite
the Wampanoags to the feast they’d made possible.
The Wampanoags,
whose name means “People of the First Light” in their native language, trace
their ancestors back at least 10,000
years to southeastern Massachusetts, a land they called Patuxet.
They occupied a
land of plenty, hunting deer, elk and bear in the forests, fishing for herring
and trout, and harvesting quahogs in the rivers and bays. They planted corn and
used fish remains as fertilizer. In the winter, they moved inland from the
harsh weather, and in the spring, they moved to the coastlines.
The Wampanoags weren’t invited.
Ousamequin and his men showed up only
after the English in their revelry shot off some of their muskets. At the sound
of gunfire, the Wampanoags came running, fearing they were headed to war.
“One hundred warriors show up armed
to the teeth after they heard muskets fired,” said Paula Peters.
Told it was a harvest celebration,
the Wampanoags joined, bringing five deer to share, she said. There was fowl,
fish, eel, shellfish and possibly cranberries from the area’s
natural bogs.
1)
November has been designated as Native American
Indian Heritage Month since 1990, when President George H.W. Bush signed a bill
honoring America’s tribal people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Indian_Heritage_Month
2)
It’s the time of the year known as Indian summer. According
to The Farmer’s Almanac, there are several reasons why it is called Indian
Summer. Since none of the explanations are verified, you can pick the one you
like.
3)
Even though Native Americans have lived in what is
now the United States, our knowledge of their past is surprisingly limited.
Sure, we’re all familiar with Custer’s Last Stand and Wounded Knee, but how
many of us know that the mountain that is now Mount Rushmore was once known as
the Six Grandfathers? How many people have even heard of the Indian Removal Act
of 1830, which led to the “Trail of Tears”? Did you know that between 1777 and
1868, the United State government signed 368 treaties with the native Americans?
Although a number of those treaties were
broken, Native people never gave
up on their treaties or the tribal sovereignty that treaties recognized.
Beginning in the 1960s, Native activists invoked America’s growing commitment
to social justice to restore broken treaties, to demand congressional
legislation – or modern treaty amendments – that repaired the damages that had
been inflicted on tribal communities by U.S. Indian policies, and to rejuvenate
tribal governments long subjugated by heavy-handed federal agents. Today, the
reassertion of treaty rights and tribal self-determination is evident in
renewed tribal political, economic and cultural strength, as well as in
reinvigorated nation-to-nation relations with the United States.
https://blog.nativehope.org/six-grandfathers-before-it-was-known-as-mount-rushmore
4)
Native Americans were not recognized as citizens
until 1924, when the Indian Citizenship Act was signed. In some states, they
were not allowed to vote until much later. When native American Ira Hayes (a native
of Arizona) climbed to the top of Mount Suribachi in February of 1945, he still
was not allowed to vote in Arizona.
https://law.asu.edu/indian-legal-program/nativevotearizona
At a time when it is more important than even to learn our
country’s history, followers of the FOX network are told to “whitewash” the
past, which they call “critical race theory”, and that is very dangerous, since
focusing on that issue alone just enabled Glenn Youngkin to get elected as the
next Governor of Virginia.
Amen.
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