In the song “Alice’s Restaurant,” Arlo Guthrie tells a meandering Thanksgiving tale involving a garbage dump, an empty church and “police officer station,” ending by encouraging listeners to sing the song’s chorus to protest the Vietnam War.
An Ann Arbor, Michigan, radio station played the song on Friday nights when Larry Bassett was in college, marking the time when he began considering civil disobedience before becoming a “war tax resister” at different times in his life.
At that time, the Selective Service office was one stop on Bassett’s Saturday morning U.S. Postal Service route. Protests often were underway as Bassett carried “like two inches of green” Selective Service cards.
“There I would be in my mail uniform being of age to be drafted, stepping carefully around these people who were being very nice to me,” Bassett said. “… I was one of those guys doing my job at that point.”
For a few months after he finished college and before he became a father, Bassett was eligible for the draft, forcing him to contemplate what he’d do if the military called his number.
Would he evade by leaving the country? Would he refuse under penalty of prison?
