Happy Thanksgiving – Arlo Guthrie

I love Thanksgiving.  I always have.  It’s gotta be my favorite holiday.  It has a different significance for me now than when I was a college kid triumphantly returning from the playground that is Boston to rural New Jersey each year.   I can remember the first time we went home for Turkey from college; it was the winter of 1978.  I had been gone maybe ten weeks, but it seemed like forever at that age.   The night before, the best drinking night of the year, was to be spent at the local bar of choice in search of that cheerleader you couldn’t quite catch even though you had at least four years to do so.  In my case, I went to North Hunterdon Regional High School in Annandale, NJ for one year (1975) before the school spun off into what is now Voorhees High School in Glen Gardner, NJ.   As a result I had friends in several school districts in that general area; Califon, Tewksbury, Clinton Township, Lebanon, High Bridge, Whitehouse, Washington,  Flemington and Annandale just to name a few.   We frequented places that included some places that I’m sure are no longer there including The Stable in High Bridge, Miller’s Tavern & The Antler Inn on the Annandale/Clinton line, The Tewksbury Inn in Oldwick, The Brass Penny in Peapack, Smiley’s on Route 31 in Clinton, The River Styx & The Brookside Inn in Califon, The Place in Glen Gardner and half a dozen other places I’m totally forgetting having been gone over 30 years now.    That’s a lot of ground to cover in one night in search of an old flame right?  We’d be lucky to hit three bars that night honestly…

My mother was so happy to see me I could barely get out of the house after dinner the night before Thanksgiving.  My car was gone,  having sold it upon leaving town,  so I was at the mercy of my mother and her Buick.  It would be comical if I wasn’t in such a mad hurry to meet up with my buddies.  I had what amounts to a six or seven year crush on the same girl, but I wasn’t worried about her;  the feeling was never mutual and I had several new unrequited loves by then.   If I ran into her, great, but I wasn’t going out of my way to find her.  I just wanted to pound with my buddies and talk it over.  An awful lot of unchaperoned activity had gone down in those ten weeks.  I might even have even had something to contribute to the ongoing “conversation” by then.  I think you know what I mean (as Oasis once said).

The key on pre-Thanksgiving nights out has always been don’t drink so much that you can’t function in front of the family the next day…that would be bad…especially at 19.  I guess I should preface that back in those days the drinking age was 18.  It was changed in Massachusetts to 20 in 1979 or 1980 if memory serves, but I had grandfather privileges somehow.  I don’t remember the specifics, but I’ve had unfettered access to alcohol since my 18th birthday.  I guess that just makes me old (as he takes a sip of his Jack & Coke).   I do know that after my mom left just after dropping me off for college (in tears of course), my roommate and I went down to the Bull & Finch Pub, better known as Cheers today, for a burger and a beer.   That would be September of 1978.  Man that was a long time ago…

By the way, I know you folks know that my paragraphs are normally too long and since we just made the changeover to WordPress.org from Blogspot I lost about two inches of margin.  I feel like I’m writing straight up and down now.  I’m trying to make shorter paragraphs, but it’s just not that easy.   I hope you like the new setup better, but I’m still working through a million issues with The Giant Panther.   I’m terminally anal and I want this site to do tricks it’s not designed to do so I’m a bit frustrated.  I’m trying to get a handle on that anger.  I hope you will bear with me.

Thanksgiving Day in NJ from the time I was about eight meant a near two hour drive from Tewksbury Township to Rivervale, NJ just outside New York City.  I went back to that house for Thanksgiving about 2005 and it hit me how close it was.  And that was after a seven hour drive that should have taken four hours.   I turned down a family invite this year for that very reason.  If I never have to navigate an airport, a bus station, a train station or a highway on Thanksgiving ever again it won’t be soon enough.  That also goes for so called Black Friday shopping.

My mother had a brother named Charlie whom we called Uncle Charlie for obvious reasons.  My love of baseball then didn’t register his moniker as slang for a curveball, but that was what he was to us.  I came from a family of four and Uncle Charlie had four beautiful daughters.   That meant there were eight of us kids to be managed each time Thanksgiving rolled around.  The day was more about watching the Lions and Cowboys play in those days than anything else, but the main thing we absolutely had to do was stay out of Uncle Charlie’s way.  He was a gruff postman who had a fuse shorter than Bobby Knight.  I feared this guy and by rights he shouldn’t have been able to lay a glove on me (not that he ever did, but the fear was real…he was combustible).   I can’t recall his cocktail of choice, but it didn’t take long for him to start ruling with an iron fist.  One thing he did that we found interesting was he operated a ham radio and had friends all over the world.  It was probably just the nation, but I can probably trace a bit of my love of radio to him.   By the end of the day though, after being on relative pins and needles for eight hours or so, I was ready to head home.  I loved my cousins, but it was tense at times.

WNEW-FM in New York used to play Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” on Thanksgiving Day and I grew to associate this tale of littering and overzealous small town police work with my favorite holiday.   We all knew Christmas was headed down the pike like a steam train the second the big meal was over and that only added to our love of Thanksgiving Day.  High school football, tag football in between games, the Macy’s Day Parade on TV, two NFL games and a rousing version of Alice’s Restaurant made for a big day in my youth.  It still does frankly.  I get up around 9 AM, hit the gym if possible, come back and make a pot of coffee and play all 18 minutes and 37 seconds of Arlo’s tale of woe.  One my heroes, Bob Dylan, was mad for his father Woody Guthrie so it all comes full circle somehow for me.   I listen to it once and once only every single year.  I might throw in a quick listen to “Coming Into Los Angeles” afterwards, but “Alice’s Restaurant” has been and will continue to be, a staple in my house every Thanksgiving Day without fail.  It just feels right.  I hope you all have a great meal and have plenty to be thankful for.  This economy is not going to last forever.

Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Restaurant

Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Restaurant Massacree

Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Restaurant massacree.mp3 YSI

Buy or Download the album Alice’s Restaurant from Amazon here.