You can get anything you want

I remember back in my college days when I used to visit Alice’s Restaurant, the canteen where we could grab a snack and a coffee… and take a seat on the steps nearby which had been dubbed the “Group W Bench” where many a good conversation was held. The guy working the canteen was called Alice — not his real name, of course, he’s normally known by another name these days. But I wouldn’t want to spill the beans about that.

This all comes up because of the song “Alice’s Restaurant”, which is the not the name of the restaurant, but it is the name of the song, and that’s why the song is called “Alice’s Restaurant.” I’m not exactly sure how the canteen came to be called Alice’s Restaurant, just that it used to be staffed by some hippie dude, and if you were hip enough to know what Alice’s Restaurant was and more especially what the Group W Bench was, well, that was cool with us.

I’m reminded of this whole thing today simply because of AKMA’s Thanksgiving post which includes a fabulous picture of Alice’s Restaurant, complete with church and red VW microbus. And it certainly bears mentioning that anyone whose Thanksgiving traditions include a ceremonial listening to a 25-minute Arlo classic is cool in my book.

“…walk right in, it’s around the back… just a half a mile from the railroad track….”

Okay, that’s just going to be firmly stuck in my brain until I get myself over to the CD collection and scratch the itch.

“Da da da da da da da dum …At Alice’s Restaurant.”