This is in the NYTimes today.
(http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo153x23.gif) (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/dining/22tabl.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all)
Pass a Drumstick, and an Olive Branch
(http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/21/dining/22table600.1.jpg)
By KIM SEVERSON
Published: November 22, 2006 - New York Times
COOKS can control the Thanksgiving menu, but when the dishes leave the kitchen, things can unravel fast.
Family grudges buried by time and distance resurface. New girlfriends meet ex-husbands. Prius drivers make small talk with S.U.V. owners. And vegans spend the meal defending themselves.
It’s enough to break a cook’s heart. We seek the culture of the table as much as a well-made stuffing. We want the pace of the meal to be dreamy, the conversation indelible. Nirvana is a table trimmed with our best platters and a room brimming with friends, family and warm feelings.
The problem: Americans, as a whole, have lost touch with the ritual of the shared homemade meal. Although we eat at home a lot, the food often is from restaurants or the prepared foods section of the grocery store. Families eat in shifts and leave the television on. The sandwich has become the most popular dinner entree.
No wonder we have no idea how to behave at Thanksgiving.
I have a friend whose Thanksgiving meal went south just after her grandmother called her brother a cowardly Communist. Another friend’s nightmare began when her mother’s new boyfriend started talking about breasts, and he wasn’t referencing the turkey.
“There are a lot of impossible, unspoken rules on Thanksgiving,” said JoAnn Loulan, an author and family therapist who practices in the San Francisco Bay Area. “We’re supposed to be thankful and eat a lot and drink a lot and be nice to each other. Teenagers are supposed to stop being sullen. Matriarchs are supposed to make a perfect turkey and some man is supposed to know how to carve it.”
The day is so emotionally charged that Ms. Loulan is only half-joking when she suggests a potentially lucrative line for her practice: the dysfunctional family Thanksgiving chat room, an online marathon therapy session. Or, we could all save a little money and learn a few simple rules of etiquette instead. We’re not talking about the rules that make everyone nervous, like where to put your napkin and which fork to use, but the rules that make the day soft and smooth and comfortable. Kind of like Valium, without the side effects.
“The meaning of manners is really about being kind to people, about being nice,” said Nicole DeVault, a New York etiquette instructor who for years served as the manners consultant for the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
At the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt., plenty of pre-Thanksgiving queries come in from people who hope to brush up on manners at the last minute. That kind of panic only adds to the pressure, said Peggy Post. She married into the family of Emily Post and recently published “Excuse Me, but I Was Next ...: How to Handle the Top 100 Manners Dilemmas” (HarperCollins, 2006).
A better approach is simply to make sure every action takes into consideration how another may feel, Mrs. Post said. It’s just what our parents told us all along: do unto others.
“The whole point is to make people feel comfortable, but to do what makes sense,” she said. “Etiquette is about applying consideration and respect and common sense.”
Susan Phillips Cohen, a social worker who lives in Brooklyn, relies on ritual and tradition to establish the tenor of her table. This year she will be one of a dozen or so people at her sister-in-law’s house in Staten Island. They will use the family china and make beloved dishes from childhood. That way guests can be reminded of the rules that go along with the holiday.
“Rituals are what help you get over difficult times, and they keep a lid on things, if you’re that kind of family,” she said. “There’s a code. We understand that we should try, that we should make the effort. Even if we haven’t been formally taught, we pick them up through the years.”
That’s why, before you know it, you find yourself reassuring the worried host that the turkey is most certainly not dry and leaping up to do the dishes.
One of Ms. Phillips Cohen’s favorite tricks for creating harmony is to give people something to do. It’s an axiom a professor of social work taught her years ago: action absorbs anxiety.
Just make sure it is a task someone can do well, advises Serena Bass, the Manhattan caterer. With nearly 25 years of experience catering events that included AOL’s holiday party and the actress Claire Danes’s birthday party, Ms. Bass has learned a little something about making parties work.
“People like to be told what to do, but they also like to feel successful at it,” she said. “So give them something they can do well. And remember that if you don’t assign a job to every person, they’ll amble off and get into trouble.”
And what if the conversation starts to turn sour? A host should know how to steer a conversation away from political implosions, personal attacks and off-color jokes.
“You have to use humor and think on your feet,” Mrs. DeVault said. If someone says something that seems designed to anger people, acknowledge the guest’s opinion, then make a joke about it and ease the conversation in another direction.
Mrs. Post is a little more proactive. She suggests polite but pointed private discussions ahead of time with potential troublemakers. And while it is not necessarily impolite to discuss politics or religion, a host should be prepared to defend a guest who falls under attack or appears uncomfortable.
Mrs. Post suggests language like this: “I really feel like this discussion is going nowhere and I’m sure poor Harry didn’t expect this.”
Then follow a time-honored custom: change the subject.
A good host must also handle with aplomb the guests who drift away from the table before dinner is over. Younger children can be dismissed to watch a special DVD or do an art project, but adults tempted away by the football game “must know they have to sit-stay,” Ms. Bass said. “Once they go out for a cigarette or they start texting, it’s all over.”
Clarity is key, she said. Announce ahead of time what the plan for the meal is. For example, say that appetizers will be served while the game is on, but the TV will be turned off for the meal. Better yet, offer to record the game and show it later.
Then, when the main part of the meal is over, ask one or two people by name to help clear, and ask the rest of the group to ready themselves for dessert.
So much for the hosts. But what about the guests? Ms. Loulan, the therapist, suggests bringing your boundaries to dinner. Make a plan for how you are going to handle uncomfortable situations. Give yourself permission to leave the room or to leave dinner early - as long as you prepare a thoughtful, polite excuse.
“If you can’t stay, call a friend to come and get you at a set time,” she said. “You know what’s going to happen, so act like it and make a plan to take care of yourself.”
For all of us, whether guest or host, the best tip of all might be one from Gregory McNamee, who has written dozens of books, including works on the folklore of South Africa and the natural history of an Arizona river. His latest is “Moveable Feasts: The History, Science and Lore of Food” (Praeger Publishers, 2006).
For thousands of years communal meals have been a key to building cultures. So relax and take the long view, he advises. Thanksgiving is just one more meal, and a bad one isn’t going to make or break civilization.
Besides, historians have recently concluded that the premise of Thanksgiving might be a lie.
“It turns out,” he said, “that the Indians were not so forthcoming, and the Pilgrims were not so grateful.”
(http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo153x23.gif) (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/dining/22tabl.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all)
I hope everyone has arrived in time for turkey and had a reasonably good time with family and friends and food.
I think this story is lovely reading for us as we have that last drink or a nice quiet cigar.
Another Thanksgiving Story from Mass.
(http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/article/pieces/wpLogo_250x42.gif) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/17/AR2006111700448.html)
From the travel section.
(http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2006/11/17/PH2006111701096.jpg)
Visitors come to Stockbridge, Mass., to see the foliage
or catch folk singer Arlo Guthrie perform in the church
where Alice of "Alice's Restaurant"
served up her Thanksgiving meal in 1965.
Arlo, at the Scene of the Crime
In Stockbridge, Mass., Guthrie's Lyrics Come to Life
By Andrea Sachs
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Imagine if you had heard Frank Sinatra sing "New York, New York" in a smoky Manhattan club, or caught John Denver performing "Country Roads, Take Me Home" atop a West Virginia mountain. Gives you chills.
When Arlo Guthrie performed "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" at the Guthrie Center in Stockbridge, Mass., last month, the legendary folk singer summoned the ghosts of the 1960s, calling forth Alice and Ray, the garbage dump and the draft -- all characters and scenes intimately familiar to anyone who grew up singing along to the protest song-cum-Thanksgiving staple. Nearly everyone in the high-ceilinged church, aglitter with candles set on the 100 (sold-out) tables, knew the lyrics by heart. And during the singalong refrain, the effect was more religious revival than concert.
"I grew up with Arlo," said Dennis Dilmaghani, a middle-aged New Yorker who was taping the show from the second-floor balcony. "This is the most genuine place to see Arlo and the most fitting place to hear" the fabled 18-minute story-song.
Thanks to "Alice's Restaurant" and its perennial radio play, Stockbridge and Guthrie will forever be linked. "It's become a little part of the history of the town," Guthrie said during a pre-show chat on the back porch of the Guthrie Center. "That's what makes an area feel like home -- you have a history with it."
But times do change. Forty years later, there's no Alice's Restaurant, but you pretty much can get anything you want in Stockbridge.
Arlo Guthrie would never dump on Stockbridge.
In 1965, however, it was a different story. Back then, the young hippie and a friend tossed a VW van-load of trash off a cliff in the western Massachusetts town, creating a stir -- and a song.
"Garbage has been very good to me," said Guthrie, 59, now a father of four whose hair has grayed and waist size has doubled since his youth, but whose vigor has hardly waned. "The great thing was, when the record came out, most people thought it was a nice piece of fiction."
Stranger Than Fiction
Those who live around the Berkshires town, or were raised on 1960s antiwar music, know the truth behind the lyrics. (Guthrie completed the song Thanksgiving of 1966, making this year an anniversary of sorts.) Yes, Guthrie's friends Alice and Ray Brock are real, and in 1965 they did host Thanksgiving dinner for a motley group of pals in their home, a converted church that is, yes, just a half a mile from the railroad tracks in Housatonic, a hamlet bordering Stockbridge. The illegal garbage run truly happened, as did the subsequent arrest, jailing and fining of Guthrie. The main discrepancy is that the Alice's Restaurant of the title does not refer to the eatery Alice briefly ran in Stockbridge. Listen closely to the lyrics, children:
This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and 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,
And that's why I called the song Alice's Restaurant.
Today, the church where Alice and Ray served their holiday meal and stashed their garbage contains the Guthrie Center. The singer, who lives on a farm not far from Stockbridge, bought the former Trinity Church 15 years ago to house his philanthropic foundation and to host live performances. However, for droves of aging Arloheads who can still recite every word from every song, the church is a living artifact from the Age of Aquarius.
"The story of the song is probably the only reason I know Stockbridge," said Richard Monk, a baby boomer who had road-tripped from Indianapolis to hear Guthrie perform and was tailgating with other fans before the show. "It's a stirring feeling to be here and know that the church is still standing."
A few times a year, Guthrie performs in the hallowed church, attracting dedicated followers who travel many highways to hear the best of Arlo, live from Stockbridge. Last month, during a fan reunion on a grassy lot by the church, folks were excitedly comparing recent playlists in between strums on their guitars, swigs of beer and sideways glances anticipating Guthrie's arrival.
Most of the fans at the Stockbridge concert could recite Guthrie's career without cue cards. The eldest son of legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie rocked the charts -- and the establishment -- with "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" and became even more famous as the star of the eponymous movie (directed by Arthur Penn, another Stockbridge resident). A string of well-received songs followed, such as "Coming Into Los Angeles" and "City of New Orleans," but "Alice" was the hit that made Guthrie a cultural wonder for many generations.
The singer still continues to tour the globe, his voice now a bit gravelly after singing "Alice" for so many decades.
Seat of the Arts
Stockbridge (population 2,500) seems an unlikely spot for a countercultural movement. The town, about 40 miles southeast of Albany, N.Y., is as well-preserved as a village in a snow globe, with every picket fence and steeple placed just so. One could describe it as Rockwellian, hardly a cliche in this case: Artist Norman Rockwell lived in Stockbridge for the last quarter of his life and worked in a light-streamed studio on Main Street. The studio has since moved down the road to the Norman Rockwell Museum, which was founded in 1969 -- the same year the movie version of "Alice's Restaurant" was released.
The compact downtown is prim and puritan, with Colonial-style buildings, thick foliage shading the two-lane road and such area-appropriate shops as a Yankee Candle outlet and a Country Store. On an autumn weekend, a woman was sweeping crumpled leaves off the sidewalk with a broom, abandoning her yardwork only to watch a parade of Victorian horse-drawn carriages clop through. When the town isn't throwing some type of festival -- one recent weekend there was a harvest celebration, a horse-and-coach procession, a wedding for 300 and an antique fire engine event -- visitors can peruse art galleries, shop for crafts and kitsch, or watch life stream by from rocking chairs at the 18th-century Red Lion Inn.
The town also has a strong creative streak, though it caters more to highbrow sophisticates than to "Kumbaya" types. "There are wonderfully artistic people here who come and see the Boston Symphony Orchestra [at nearby Tanglewood]. There's no better place to hear them, and there's no better place to see dance than at Jacob's Pillow," says Guthrie, whose mother taught summer dance classes here when he was a child. "We also have the Berkshire Theatre Festival and Shakespeare and all of the little clubs that are beginning to sprout up with music."
One of the biggest performing arts venues -- Guthrie calls it the "alpha music center in the area" -- is the venerable Tanglewood. The Boston Pops and symphony relocates to the outdoor venue for the summer, but music aficionados can also catch jazz, pop and other genres during the warm months. When the temperatures begin to drop, the musicians pack up their instruments and let the foliage take center stage. Come fall, leaf peepers come in packs, driving below the speed limit to soak up every red-orange tint.
"It's generally nuts all summer," says Guthrie. "After the leaves fall, that's when we head out to all of the great restaurants and go to some of the events."
To be sure, in small and preppy Stockbridge, Guthrie stands out. You could blame his success. Or maybe it's his long, crinkly hair and clogs.
Every May, when snow is a distant memory and the Berkshires are revving up for the summer arts season, the Guthrie Center holds its annual Garbage Trail Walk. The 6.3-mile tour, which raises money for Huntington's disease (Guthrie's father died of the degenerative neurological illness), follows the route spelled out in "Alice's Restaurant Massacree." But the tour is hardly seasonal; in fact, to accurately re-create the 1965 event, go in the fall, when the leaves crunch underfoot and the air smells of spiced pumpkin pie.
To remain faithful to the song, start at the third stanza: at the old Trinity Church by the railroad tracks.
Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on --
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 Fasha the dog.
With its high peaked roof and round stained-glass window, the church is a textbook example of New England architecture; only the peace-sign flag in the window gives away its bohemian reincarnation. When Alice and Ray lived in the church, they stashed their garbage in an adjoining sanctuary. The detritus is long gone, and the annex now is used as an entrance to the nave. Inside, posters, photos and other memorabilia capture Guthrie during his more rebellious times. In the main hall, tables and chairs form a thick wedge around a stage. A solitary office chair sits like an abandoned throne at the back of the stage. The chair belonged to Chief of Police William "Obie" Obanhein, Guthrie's arresting officer. The singer and his adversary became friends during the filming of the "Alice's Restaurant" movie, and though Obie has died, his memory still attends Guthrie's shows.
Stop 2 is about four miles away, at the old Town Dump, which was closed 41 years ago, forcing a young Guthrie to search elsewhere to unload his trash.
So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump.
Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across the dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving."
And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before,
And with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.
The site off Glendale Middle Road remains shut, this time for good. The landfill is now punctuated with small lumps of rubble and wildflowers. Wild turkeys dash about, as if they know Thanksgiving is near.
To follow the song to the letter, the next stop would be the scene of the crime, where Guthrie dumped heaps of garbage off an escarpment.
Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another 15-foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of garbage.
And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles,
And rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down.
Unfortunately, a house now stands in that spot, so it's best to skip ahead to the Stockbridge lockup, where Guthrie did time.
. . . When we got to the police officer's station there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon,
And we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed.
And I said "Obie, I don't think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on."
The police station and the town hall are housed in the same stately white building, so locals can do all their legal errands at one time. To see Guthrie's cell, you don't have to get yourself arrested: His blue cell door sits outside, at the bottom of the stairs of the police station. Guthrie's jail sentence has become a tourist attraction.
The final stop in Stockbridge is Alice's Restaurant. For a short time, the real-life Alice ran a restaurant off Main Street, along a narrow alleyway. Now a sign reads "Theresa's Stockbridge Cafe, formerly Alice's Restaurant." It is temporarily shuttered, but the connected Main Street Cafe is open -- and crammed with tourists lining up for ice cream, home-baked goods and scented candles. The restaurant and gift shop sell Alice's Restaurant T-shirts, but the apple bread pudding is much more filling. Down the block, the public library has in its files clippings of the arrest and the police photos of the crime scene -- black and white, not color, despite what the song says.
As a bonus attraction, fans can venture about six miles east to the town of Lee and the courthouse where Guthrie was fined $50 for some major littering. The red-brick building was closed the weekend I visited, but a kind cop opened the doors and pointed out where Guthrie stood (back right, on an enclosed podium) and where the blind judge sat (center seat).
There are no relics of Guthrie in the courthouse, not a name scratched in the wood or a peace sign inked on a chair. But Guthrie did leave behind one lasting memento: a legendary song, which has become an anthem of sorts to Stockbridge.
(http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/article/pieces/wpLogo_250x42.gif) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/17/AR2006111700448.html)
ps. I am in Canada (Newfoundland) and I would love to visit Stockbridge for this.
I have seen Arlo's Stockbridge Show on PBS, though, and it is great.
Happy Thanksgiving.