Remembering Alice Brock

And Her Restaurant: It was about nine years ago (OK ... it was exactly June 30, 2015) that Abq Jew posted a blog (see Arlo And Alice Meet Jane) to tell us all about Jane Ellen's The World of Arlo Guthrie OASIS class - as we sorta approached the 50th Anniversary of the Alice's Restaurant Masacree.

Wow! That was 9+ years ago! During those nine years (plus almost five months), just a few things have changed. As you may recall.

• OASIS Albuquerque Director Kathleen Raskob retired.
• OASIS Albuquerque Teacher Extraordinaire Jane Ellen retired. And moved to Florida!
• Famed folksinger Arlo Davy Guthrie turned 77.
• Famed personality Alice Brock died last week (on November 21), at the age of 83. Just before Thanksgiving.

Yes, Alice Brock was the woman and restaurant owner behind Arlo's now-classic anti-war and anti-litter song, Alice's Restaurant. Berkshire Magazine wrote on Instagram: 

We are deeply saddened to hear that Alice Brock, who was an inspiration for the song “Alice’s Restaurant” by Arlo Guthrie and a legend in the Berkshires, died on Thursday. She was 83 years old, leaving us just one week before Thanksgiving. 

Two years ago, editor-in-chief Anastasia Stanmeyer traveled to Provincetown where Alice lived, to sit and talk with her about her time in the Berkshires and in the Cape. We have included a link to the exclusive story, “Breaking Bread with Alice.” 

Alice is pictured here at her kitchen table. “This is the only thing I brought with me from the Berkshires,” she told Anastasia. “It has two leafs. We used to all sit around this table in the church whenever we got together. This is where Arlo wrote ‘Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,’ or at least some of it. We were all making up choruses, but he had his own ideas.” 

Among other stories, Alice recounted how she loaded up her Cadillac with her belongings and made her way to Provincetown in 1978. There’s a photo here from one of her cookbooks, as well as a photo of Alice sitting on a car taken by Jane McWhorter before Alice headed east. 

We can picture Alice in that Cadillac once again, on the highway to her next destination. 

Here is a portion of what Abq Jew wrote way back in 2015:

Jane Ellen @ OASIS Albuquerque

The 4th of July is a long way from Thanksgiving (145 days this year, to be exact). So Abq Jew is pretty sure he will be the first to remind the world of the

Abq Jew here writes not of the song, but of the event (or series of events) that inspired it.

This song is called "Alice's Restaurant." 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. That's why I call the song "Alice's Restaurant."

As Abq Jew recently reported (see Summer 2015 @ OASIS Albuquerque), Jane Ellen (see Atomic Cocktail & Uranium Rock), the Musical Muse of the Abq Metro, will be teaching about Arlo Guthrie this week.

Now, the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacree (as the song is properly known) began back on Thanksgiving Day in 1965.

For those keeping score: Thanksgiving 1965 fell on Thursday (you knew that, right?) November 25, which was (unlike this year) but 144 days after the 4th of July 1965.

The Alice in the song (Wikipedia tells us) was restaurant-owner Alice Brock, who in 1964 used $2,000 supplied by her mother to purchase a deconsecrated church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts,

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago ... 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 Facha, the dog. 

And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be. And havin' all that room (seein' as how they took out all the pews), they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time.

Now what, Abq Jew hears you ask, does this have to do
with the price of pastrami in Poughkeepsie?

And the answer is ... nothing much. Except that Arlo is, in fact, a dyed in the wool MOT, although the color has faded somewhat over the years. As Wikipedia tells us:

Arlo Guthrie was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of folk singer and composer Woody Guthrie and his wife Marjorie Mazia Guthrie. His sister is record producer Nora Guthrie. 

His mother was a one-time professional dancer with the Martha Graham Company and founder of the Committee to Combat Huntington's Disease, the disease that took Woody's life in 1967. 

His father was from a Protestant family and his mother was Jewish. His maternal grandmother was renowned Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt.

As it turns out - it's a little-known factoid that Arlo Guthrie's Bar Mitzvah tutor was ultra-nationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane, who formed the Jewish Defense League and (later) founded the Israeli political party Kach.

"Rabbi Kahane was a really nice, patient teacher," Guthrie later recalled, "but shortly after he started giving me my lessons, he started going haywire. Maybe I was responsible."

And, as it also turns out - Alice, too, was, in fact, a dyed in the wool MOT, although the color faded somewhat over the years. As Wikipedia tells us:

Brock was born Alice May Pelkey in Brooklyn, New York City. 

Her mother, Mary Pelkey, was a Jewish native of Brooklyn; her father, an Irish Catholic man, was originally from Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The Pelkey family was relatively well-to-do and often spent summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Mr. Pelkey sold artwork for Peter Hunt. 

Neither of her parents were religious, but her family had many connections to Jewish culture and she herself variously identified as a Jew and as half-Jewish,

When Abq Jew ponders the knowledge and values he will pass on to his kids and grandkids - he realizes that they have no idea who Arlo Guthrie is or what Alice's Restaurant meant to a whole generation of anti-war kids way back when.

They have never heard the song. The phrase

"twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy photographs
with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back
of each one explainin' what each one was"
means nothing in particular to them.

So - this is for the kids.

Click here for video!

And - for the historical record - Wikipedia tells us that "Alice's Restaurant" was released in October 1967. However (and this is a big however):

"Alice's Restaurant" was performed on July 17, 1967, at the Newport Folk Festival in a workshop or breakout section on "topical songs", where it was such a hit that he was called upon to perform it for the entire festival audience. 

The song's success at Newport and on WBAI led Guthrie to record it in front of a studio audience in New York City and release it as side one of the album Alice's Restaurant in October 1967. 

Guthrie noted that the studio recording combined some of the worst elements of both studio and live recording, in that the audience chosen for the record had already heard him perform the song repeatedly, but because of the audience, he had to record the song and album in one take.