Offbeat | Illegal trash dumper leaves witty nod to Arlo Guthrie song

Whoever dumped trash at the building made famous in Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 Thanksgiving protest anthem “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” has a sense of humor.
The director of what’s now the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, discovered on Tuesday that someone had filled the dumpster with garbage and left a grubby sofa nearby.
They also left a sign that said: “Officer Obie told me to do it.”
The sign was a reference to former Stockbridge Police Chief William Obanhein, the Officer Obie of the song who arrested Guthrie for illegally dumping trash.
Guthrie, who was traveling Tuesday, said in a note to The Berkshire Eagle through a family member, “I hope they left an envelope with some money in it.”
According to the song, an envelope with a name on it led to Guthrie’s arrest.