Today is Thanksgiving and we here at WebActive are celebrating by playing a tape of something recorded a few days ago, because in that fine American tradition, we’re not working on a holiday.
This year, we’re celebrating Thanksgiving with the official Thanksgiving song, which many people may think is “over the river and through the woods,” but it’s not because while that song does mention pumpkin pie, it doesn’t mention Thanksgiving, at least not directly and so it will have to settle for runner-up status. And if you haven’t guessed the official Thanksgiving song by the way I’m talking – I’ll have to tell you that it’s Alice’s Restaurant, which of course will make some of you immediately afraid this commentary is going to go on for eighteen and a half minutes, and while WebActive is progressive, I don’t think Sam is about to let me talk for a quarter of an hour.
Now, for those of you who have never heard the story of Alice’s Restaurant, it all started with a Thanksgiving dinner 30 years ago in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and was followed shortly thereafter by an episode of criminal littering and that in turn led to a young man being refused by his draft board and he was not allowed to go overseas and shoot at people his government thought should be killed.
But that was a long time ago and my only real brush with Alice’s Restaurant came in the summer of 1988. I was working for Gene Karpinski, that fella on the other channel, and I hired a young man from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, just because his bar mitzvah had been catered by Alice’s Restaurant. Well, that was a mistake, and it was less than a week later we learned this young man was not cut out for a career of knocking on doors and asking people to change the world, and we had to let him go off with tears in his eyes, looking for another summer job.
But that’s another topic, it’s not what we’re here to talk about today. Thirty years ago, Alice’s Restaurant wasn’t about Alice’s Restaurant, it was about avoiding the draft. I think Bill Clinton must have been listening then, because he avoided the draft, but he must have stopped listening at some point, ’cause now he’s commander-in-chief. There’s no tellin’ the way some things are going to get changed around. Some things don’t change, because we still live in a country where any red-blooded American boy can grow up to be a heinie-pinching drill sergeant in the U.S. Army.
My great uncle John used to tell me about how he got sent to France in 1917 to get the heinies and I’m thinking all this time that he meant he was fighting Germans. I don’t know who said it, but war is hell.
As for myself, I’m going to flee across the border into Canada for Thanksgiving this year, in memory of those draft dodgers of 30 years ago. And before I eat my Canadian turkey, I’m going to bow my head and sing a chorus of “Alice’s Restaurant” and I’m going to ask you to do the same as a memorial to those draft dodgers and protesters who stopped a war that should never have been started.
Because if we have citizens smart enough to stay out of the military, then maybe we’ve got a shot at having a country smart enough to stay out of wars.
You Can Get Anything You Want
Today is Thanksgiving and we here at WebActive are celebrating by playing a tape of something recorded a few days ago, because in that fine American tradition, we’re not working on a holiday.
This year, we’re celebrating Thanksgiving with the official Thanksgiving song, which many people may think is “over the river and through the woods,” but it’s not because while that song does mention pumpkin pie, it doesn’t mention Thanksgiving, at least not directly and so it will have to settle for runner-up status. And if you haven’t guessed the official Thanksgiving song by the way I’m talking – I’ll have to tell you that it’s Alice’s Restaurant, which of course will make some of you immediately afraid this commentary is going to go on for eighteen and a half minutes, and while WebActive is progressive, I don’t think Sam is about to let me talk for a quarter of an hour.
Now, for those of you who have never heard the story of Alice’s Restaurant, it all started with a Thanksgiving dinner 30 years ago in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and was followed shortly thereafter by an episode of criminal littering and that in turn led to a young man being refused by his draft board and he was not allowed to go overseas and shoot at people his government thought should be killed.
But that was a long time ago and my only real brush with Alice’s Restaurant came in the summer of 1988. I was working for Gene Karpinski, that fella on the other channel, and I hired a young man from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, just because his bar mitzvah had been catered by Alice’s Restaurant. Well, that was a mistake, and it was less than a week later we learned this young man was not cut out for a career of knocking on doors and asking people to change the world, and we had to let him go off with tears in his eyes, looking for another summer job.
But that’s another topic, it’s not what we’re here to talk about today. Thirty years ago, Alice’s Restaurant wasn’t about Alice’s Restaurant, it was about avoiding the draft. I think Bill Clinton must have been listening then, because he avoided the draft, but he must have stopped listening at some point, ’cause now he’s commander-in-chief. There’s no tellin’ the way some things are going to get changed around. Some things don’t change, because we still live in a country where any red-blooded American boy can grow up to be a heinie-pinching drill sergeant in the U.S. Army.
My great uncle John used to tell me about how he got sent to France in 1917 to get the heinies and I’m thinking all this time that he meant he was fighting Germans. I don’t know who said it, but war is hell.
As for myself, I’m going to flee across the border into Canada for Thanksgiving this year, in memory of those draft dodgers of 30 years ago. And before I eat my Canadian turkey, I’m going to bow my head and sing a chorus of “Alice’s Restaurant” and I’m going to ask you to do the same as a memorial to those draft dodgers and protesters who stopped a war that should never have been started.
Because if we have citizens smart enough to stay out of the military, then maybe we’ve got a shot at having a country smart enough to stay out of wars.