Amazing Tales from CT: She Put the Alice in Alice’s Restaurant

We encourage you to tune in to our newest program, Amazing Tales from Off and On Connecticut's Beaten Path, which airs Sunday afternoons at 4:30 right after the Opera.

 

Amazing Tales uses a story-telling format to focus on historically significant people, places, and events from Connecticut’s past. Host Mike Allen interviews subject matter experts on a variety of historical topics.

 

He specializes in bringing local history to life, by using his journalism and story-telling skills with podcasting and public speaking. For 15 years, Mike worked as a radio journalist, both at NPR's Boston affiliate WBUR and as News Director at i-95 (WRKI-FM) in western Connecticut. He subsequently worked in government and corporate before retiring and starting his podcast. As a resident of Connecticut for more than 50 years, Mike also makes public appearances throughout the state, speaking on topics of local history.

 

The folk anthem Alice’s Restaurant, which debuted in the 1960s, has remained one of the iconic classics over the years. Arlo Guthrie (son of folk song writer and performer Woody Guthrie) told the story of an arrest for littering on Thanksgiving Day in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts and blended it with a strong statement against the military draft during the Vietnam War. The unwitting heroine of this was Alice Brock, who ran a restaurant in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and hosted numerous guests for meals at her converted church in Great Barrington – including the then-young Arlo. Her side of the story is not always heard – but you can hear it in this episode. And, there’s an interesting Connecticut twist awaiting you at the end.