"Drove back to the church, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep, and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from Officer Obie. He said, "Kid, we found your name on a envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage and I just wanted to know if you had any information about it."
And I said, "Yes sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie. I put that envelope under that garbage." After speakin' to Obie for about forty-five minutes on the telephone, we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and he said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the Police Officer Station.
I wanna tell you 'bout the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this is happenin'. They got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the scene of the crime, there was five police officers and three police cars, bein' the biggest crime of the last fifty years and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it.
And they was usin' up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hangin' around the Police Officer Station. They was takin' plaster tire tracks, footprints, dog-smellin' prints and they took twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainin' what each one was, to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner, the southwest corner . . .
when we all had to go to court. We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down.
Man came in, said, "All rise!" We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures, and the judge walked in, sat down, with a seein' eye dog and he sat down. We sat down.
Obie looked at the seein' eye dog . . . then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one . . . and looked at the seein' eye dog . . . and then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each on and began to cry.
Because Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothin' he could do about it, and the judge wasn't gonna look at the twenty-seven 8 by 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainin' what each one was, to be used as evidence against us.
And we was fined fifty dollars and had to pick up the garbage... in the snow.
But that's not what I'm here to tell you about.
I'm here to talk about the draft.
And with that segue, Arlo took us all from a comical story about rural police activity to something much more sinister and menacing, the draft. When Alice's Restaurant came out, the draft was still in full force. Everyone had to register and serve. Obviously, those who could pay for deferments, did so. Those whose family connections were high enough or specific enough were allowed to skate. But it wasn't until 1971 when a United States Supreme Court decision broadened U.S. rules beyond religious belief as grounds for conscientious objection. In Arlo's day, either you were wealthy, or you served. Thus, his next tirade about being inducted into the army was one borne of desperation and fear. Arlo was looking for any method of getting out of the draft. Here's his story on it:
"I went down and got my physical examination one day, and I walked in, sat down (got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning, 'cause I wanted to look like the All-American Kid from New York City. I wanted to feel like . . . I wanted to be the All-American Kid from New York), and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up and all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things.
And I walked in, I sat down, they gave me a piece of paper that said: "Kid, see the psychiatrist in room 604."
I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I wanna kill. I wanna kill! I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth! Eat dead, burnt bodies! I mean: Kill. Kill!"
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