Reputation - Part II

Theresa's Cafe, Stockbridge, MA

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,

and favor is better than silver or gold.

Proverbs 22:1

Theresa’s Café can be found at the end of a tiny alley-like drive in Stockbridge.  It is an outwardly nondescript place that you would never know was there without signs being posted on Main Street.  This little eating establishment has a far greater claim to fame than one would perceive from the street – this is the Alice’s Restaurant of Arlo Guthrie fame.

Alice and Ray Brock were teachers who lived in a converted church, transforming the place into a refuge for their students and other young people to escape the “establishment pressures,” including the Vietnam War and the draft.  On Thanksgiving Day in 1965, 18-year-old Arlo and his friend Richard, were asked by Alice to take some garbage to the dump.  Finding the facility closed because of the holiday, the two kids threw the trash down a local hillside.  Arrested by Stockbridge policeman Obie Obanhein for illegal dumping, Guthrie and friend found themselves in court.  The officer had photos of the crime to present to the court, but the judge on duty that day entered the courtroom with a seeing-eye dog.  Arlo and Richard were eventually fined $25 each and told to go pick up their garbage.

During the next two years, this incident in Guthrie’s life evolved into his signature song, “Alice’s Restaurant.”  According to the song, when Guthrie was later called up for the draft, he went to the New York City induction center.  The last question?  “Have you ever been arrested?”  Because of his criminal record for littering, the song records that he was rejected for military service - the officer declaring, “We don’t like your kind,” and sending his fingerprints to the FBI: a litterer too immoral to be sent to war.  In reality, he was classified 1A, but his number never came up.  A movie was made about Alice’s Restaurant in 1968, with both Guthrie and Office Obie playing themselves.

Guthrie’s song and movie immortalized his youthful indiscretion and his name is forever linked with Alice’s Restaurant.  It is not, however, the end of the story.  In the mid-1990’s, Guthrie raised the funds to purchase the church building as a home for the Guthrie Foundation, a nonprofit interfaith organization that cultivates spiritual activities as well as cultural and educational endeavors.