The Friday Morning Listen: Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Restaurant (1967)

Me and TheWife™ left the house late morning yesterday to have Thanksgiving dinner at the house of some old friends. After a dinner that couldn’t be beat, we packed ourselves back in the Subaru for the ride home. Wow. This holiday season thing, it doesn’t take very long to arrive. Between daylight and darkness, thousands of people went out and plugged in their outdoor Christmas light displays. Boom! Christmas time is here! The landscape had been transformed. It was so bright, you could almost drive without headlights.

Now, I’m not talking about mere ropes of lights tracing the perimeter of a roof line. No, this is serious business. There were trees lit up in blue, trees lit up in white, snowflakes, stars, wreathes, candy canes, Nativity scenes, Santas, sleighs, reindeer, and reindeer with bobbing heads. There are scary levels of color coordination, with interior lights set up to match what’s out on the lawn. I guess I’ve seen all of this for years now, but the rapidity with which it’s all deployed is kind of crazy.

But hey, “crazy” is all relative. I find the display of a 3D head-bobbing reindeer far more sane than the people creating the temporary holiday season tent cities outside of stores, looking to get a jump on that perfect Black Friday bargain. Sometimes I wonder if they’re really there for that great deal, instead hoping they’ll get interviewed for a television report. Well, hopefully nobody gets killed this year.

I don’t mean to turn this into an anti-shopping rant because honestly, the fact that millions of people are going to crowd the stores today has zero impact on my life. I will still get up, make a pot of coffee, put on some music, and then get down to some reading.

Shopping? There are plenty of small local stores for that. But not today. Heck, not even next week. It can wait. Happy Thanksgiving.

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Mark Saleski

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