Seeing That It's Thanksgiving

"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."

Some of you recognize this song already. it plays at my house just before we have a Thanksgiving dinner that just can't be beat. The thing is the song isn't even really about Alice or the restaurant. It's about something else entirely. Something timely.

"But that's not what I came here to tell you about."

I came here to talk about adoption.

For some reason this passage comes to mind...

"It was about four or five hours later that Alice--(remember Alice? There's a song about Alice.)--Alice came by and, with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court. We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down.

Man came in, said, "All rise!" We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures, and the judge walked in, sat down, with a seein' eye dog and he sat down. We sat down.

Obie looked at the seein' eye dog . . . then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one . . . and looked at the seein' eye dog . . . and then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each on and began to cry.

Because Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothin' he could do about it, and the judge wasn't gonna look at the twenty-seven 8 by 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainin' what each one was, to be used as evidence against us.

And we was fined fifty dollars and had to pick up the garbage... in the snow."

Take from it what you will, and listen to the whole song, it's not about adoption, nor was Arlo adopted, but somehow he's still making sense.

About a lot of things.