Hi Mike,

Zee you tomorrow. Looking forward to convertable weather.

Mark

04 350Z Touring Convertable

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I have never joined a car club before. I have a 350Z "04' Blue convertible that I just bought 7/3/10. I have owned Nissan's before but this is my first Z of many to come. I just love it so far. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone soon.

Our destinations on Saturday are:

Theresa's Stockbridge Cafe (formerly Alice's Restaurant),
40 Main Street (around the back)
Stockbridge, MA 01230
413-298-3915 or 413-298-5465
(corner of Main and South Sts Rte7)

and

Guthrie Center (Old Trinity Church)
4 VanDeusenville Road
Great Barrington, MA (6 miles from Alice's Restaurant)
413-298-3915

We plan to have lunch at Alice's (Theresa's), sing a verse and walk out. Then we'll visit the church where Alice and Ray Brock lived (and invited Arlo for Thanksgiving dinner in 1965) and drive back to CT.

Anyone who would enjoy this trip is welcome to meet us at the Park & Ride lot, Exit 8 off Rte8 north (that's just above Bridgeport, about where Merritt Pkwy crosses Rte8) btwn 10am-10:30am, or just meet us at Alice's for lunch about noonish.

Z ya there!
Frank

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1970 240Z

We did this today, and it was undoubtably one of the happiest memories I will ever have of this Club.

Arlo Guthrie's 18-1/2 minute long ALICE's RESTAURANT MASACREE (Mass-a-KREE) was a favorite song of my youth. I loved it from the first time I heard it back in 1967. It told the story of how Arlo got arrested by Officer Obie for littering on Thanksgiving in 1965, and I remember tears running down my face from laughing so hard at it. OK, I admit I was drunk at the time, but I still smile each time I hear it. The story centers around the tiny village of Stockbridge, Mass, a Hippy couple named Alice and Ray Brock who bought an old church to live in, and Alice's unsuccessful attempt to make a good business out of a hole-in-the-wall one room back-alley restaurant, which she named "The Back Room" but which Arlo refers to as "Alice's Restaurant" in his song. Arlo's silly arrest later came back to haunt him when he reported for the Vietnam Draft.

Today 5 of us CTZCC members descended upon the actual restaurant (which is now called Theresa's Stockbridge Cafe) for lunch. All the other customers got up and left when we came in! I guess we sat at the Group W table? The place is decorated with memorabilia about Alice and Arlo.

Having been told that I wouldn't have been very impressed with the place back in 1965, I wasn't sure what to expect today. Alice bought the restaurant on a whim. She wasn't a business woman, and the only restaurant experience she had at that time was having eaten at a few before she bought this one. She didn't have a menu ~ almost anything you ordered required Alice to run to the general store in the front of the building and buy what you wanted, cook it and serve it. She had no regular wait staff ~ customers helped each other, and themselves. In fact, Alice had very little in the way of utensils or china, either. I've heard she used empty soup cans as cups, washing them as soon as the customer left, then immediately pressing them into service at the next table. Please remember, these were the Happy Hippy days, and things were different then. Most of her customers were no older than she was.

Today we were pleased to find a full menu of interesting options and two very accommodating young waitresses taking care of us (of course, everyone else had left when they saw us come in, so they had nobody else to wait on!) We decided on a huge pizza (which was called OBIE's REVENGE ) and I was surpriZed at how good it was.

In exchange for the pizza, the guys bought me an ALICE's RESTAURANT T-shirt (which predictably reads, 'YOU CAN GET ANYTHING YOU WANT" on the front, and "AT ALICE's RESTAURANT" on the back). We grabbed a fistful of Theresa's buisiness cards, which wisely read, "Dine at the famous Alice's Restaurant", and took some pictures from the Northwest corner, the Southeast corner, and tried some aerial photography. Then, as the tables began filling back up with new innocent, unsuspecting tourists, all 5 of us stood in the center of the restaurant and sang a verse of the Massacree, and walked out! We were pretty surpriZed to hear laughter and applause behind us!

The villiage of Stockbridge is an amaZing tourist trap! There must have been at least 1,000 people walking the streets in a two-block area. This was also the home of the famous American painter Norman Rockwell. One of Rockwell's most famous paintings depicted a uniformed police officer sitting on a restaurant counter stool, beside a very young boy at the next stool. Beneath the kid's feet is a bag of clothes tied to a stick, and it's clear the kid is a runaway. The officer in the painting is actually the real officer Obie (William Obanhein), and the restaurant is in tiny Stockbridge, somewhere.

At Al Babik's suggestion, we parked the Zs behind the Police Officer's Station and walked a block to Alice's (Theresa's). After lunch, I drove my Z down the narrow alley while Al shot pictures of me parked in front of the famous Alice's Restaurant! Mission Accomplished!

At Alice's, we got directions to the church where Alice and Ray lived, where they threw a "Thanksgiving dinner which couldn't be beat" back in 1965. Arriving there, we parked the cars in the tiny lot and shot some more pictures. A nice, older fellow was single-handedly raking the leaves from the church's corner lot, so we took over and spontaneously spent a half-hour of community service by cleaning up the leaves at the church (which is now the Guthrie Center for the performing arts).

The day was perfect, the weather was perfect, the leaves are turning up there this time of year, the town is quaint, and I had a blast. On the trips up and back we were blessed by several 30-minute intervals when there was almost no traffic but us and no cops in sight. We got to play with the Zs in wonderful wide, hilly, nearly empty ribbons of twisty, smooth roadway thru the Berkshires. Life was good.

I thank Mike, Isaac, Mark and Al for coming along and making this trip so memorable for me. One of my life's fantasies has been fulfilled, and when the time comes, I can die happier now. I have visited Alice's Restaurant, and got exactly the things I wanted.

Frank

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1970 240Z

Well said Frank. Thank you for everything! You are a great man to be around and it was an honor to be with you today and make your dream come true. Oh and let's not forget me losing my clutch so I had to learn how to shift without it. I gotta say I was really getting it down by the end of the day. Thanks for reassuring me I could do it. My Z never leaves me stranded. It was a blast driving up and back. I even got video just gotta edit it and I'll upload it. Mark as always your 350Z looked sweet! It was nice spending the day with you as well. Of course always nice seeing my new buddy Isaac. And It wouldn't be a gathering without Big Al. So thank you guys for a day I truly will never forget as long as I live. It sure was fun showing Mark and Isaac how our S30's get down. I can still hear your exhaust Frank. And thanks again for making sure I got home safe guys! Tomorrow I'll see about putting in a new slave cylinder. And Frank left out a guy wanted to buy all of our Z's. but Frank wouldn't budge on his price.

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Mike Tubiak
1978 Datsun 280Z - HLS30-438694

OUr visit to Alice's Restaurant, and to the Old Trinity Church she and Ray Brock used to live in.

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1970 240Z

Sounds like a great time Frank!! Glad to see that you finally have checked another item off your bucket list. I'm anxious to see the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was from your trip today!

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Phil
1981 280zxt - Now in the care my son!
2014 370Z Sports Touring Roadster

HERE THEY ARE, PHIL ~ but not all 27 of them developed well enough to print here......

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1970 240Z

The old Trinity Church where Ray and Alice Brock lived in the belltower is now the Guthrie Center for the performing arts.

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1970 240Z

Glad you had a good time Frank!

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Phil
1981 280zxt - Now in the care my son!
2014 370Z Sports Touring Roadster

At the Guthrie Center, Great Barrington.

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1970 240Z

This is an amazing story with great pics! Thanks guys for leading me down memory lane.I enjoyed this little trip in my mind. If I lived anywhere near you I would have been all over this road trip.This is one of those "once in a lifetime" unforgetable experiences.

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Bill James
Western Nebraska
1979 280zx coupe parts car
1980 280 zx coupe
2005 Pathfinder
1971 240 z
1982 280zx, 1977 &1974 corvettes

Thanks, Wild Bill ~ I'm still asking myself if it was real?

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1970 240Z

I'm jealous, spent most of saturday morning thinking of this trip. Almost called Mike to see where you were...
Frank thanks for the narrative and the pics. It was almost as good as being there..

....I bet you want go again Frank. Sorry I couldn't make this, but would like to go check this place out sometime myself......and if you want to go agian. Now you got me wondering where my album is....and got to dig the movie out for next month. Looked like you guys had a blast, thanks for the pics. I'll have to listen to some related music today....Woody, Cisco Houston...and some Bob Dylan.

New slave cylinder free courtesy of 20 bucks of Autozone rewards points. Installed and now I can shift. Pedal is alittle firmer than before.

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Mike Tubiak
1978 Datsun 280Z - HLS30-438694