Finding a Hippie in the Palisades

By MICHAEL OLDHAM | Contributing Writer

I’ve read a lot about the Southern California hippie scene that went down in the ’60s and ’70s. Recently I found myself wondering if there were any hippies turning on, tuning in or dropping out among us inside Pacific Palisades.

I decided to launch a search expedition for a past or present Palisadian who was a nonconformist.

My first inclination was to throw on a tie-dyed T-shirt and stroll around the commercial village along Swarthmore offering up two-finger peace signs. If someone responded back with “peace, love, man,” I might have my Palisadian hippie. But at my age, I thought better of this strategy. I was afraid that, instead of reciprocating my peace sign, the ladies might slam a purse at me and the guys would just back away.

So I went with a Google search, using search terms like “hippies” or “beatniks” combined with “Pacific Palisades.”

The first webpage I landed on was a dating webpage called “Hippie Dating in Pacific Palisades California.” I thought, “This is heavy man, I can dig it.”

But apparently there isn’t currently a thriving hippie singles demographic segment in the Palisades, since there was only a lone posting on this hippie dating page. It was from a woman referring to herself as “pinke3131.” I’m not married, so I opened her profile and found the single lady listing herself as 40 years of age and advertising some of her appealing characteristics. But I’m not close to pinke3131’s age and I don’t consider myself a hippie, despite usually wearing faded, tattered jeans and capable of flashing a nimble two finger V-sign.

Still, pinke3131 was a hippie. But to reach her for a Post interview I would’ve had to sign up for the dating site and that would be a drag, man. I clicked off.

I resumed Googling for any bohemian-type hanging out in the Palisades.

Some clicks later, I found myself reading a 2009 essay written by Ernie McCray for the OB Rag, a San Diego blog/website. It was called “Two Aging Hippies Live Here” and its subject was Ernie’s then-recently passed away wife, former Palisadian Nancy Bayliss Robertson. Here is an excerpt.

“The other day, as I pondered the words, ‘Two aging hippies live here,’ the greeting on the welcome mat … of my home, I thought about how lucky I am to have had Nancy in my life for so long. I wondered how we ever got together. I mean Nancy was raised in Pacific Palisades, in LA, overlooking the mighty Pacific, across a canyon from Grace Kelly, Walter Matthau and Betty Davis, just to name a few.

I grew up on the north side of Tucson, overlooking a not so mighty vacant lot, and there were no movie stars anywhere in view and no beautiful green canyons for little kids to frolic in or run through, no deer and the like, just lizards scurrying about under the relentless sun.

The grownups in Nancy’s life lived high on the hog with more than one bathroom in their house. The grownups in my life made a meal out of every square inch of the hog and gave thanks to God that we had something to pee in that wasn’t outside of the house.

In 1962 Nancy was president of Young Americans for Freedom, a high school Goldwater Girl. I was two years removed from the University of Arizona where I had hung out with a far out lefty group called Students for Equality.

But when I met Nancy in 1973 she had more than shed her YAF mentality and was a full-blown hippie, living her life, unapologetically, wearing her heart on her sleeve. Then, voila, we were in the early stage of a relationship.We rapped about everything, the horrors of Vietnam…Martin and Malcolm…The fire in her eventually stole me away from the life I was living and we set up housekeeping. In our 34 years together, we managed to raise twin daughters and a son. Nancy, mom, was the engine that made our family go. Oh, I’m so glad our paths crossed, as we old hippies had a great life together and it’s the hippie in me that’s keeping me moving right along in pursuit of our life quests with her memory and spirit tucked away and alive in my heart and soul.”

This love story touched me with sadness. Yes, I had found a onetime Palisadian who had become a hippie, a least in spirit, but she had passed away.

After contacting Ernie and learning more about his now-gone wife Nancy, my mood took a groovy turn. From talking to Ernie and reading the retired school principal’s other writings, I started turning on and tuning into the spirit of Nancy, how she made him and other people happy.

Ernie once wrote, “Nancy was the best listener I’ve ever known.” I read that Nancy would not pass a stranger on the street without a “hello” and a freely given smile. Yeah, man, you could say I was moved by Nancy’s good vibes.

Others too have tripped out on her free spirit while she was alive. These include former Palisadians who knew Nancy as Nancy Bayliss while she was living in the Via Bluffs at 424 Lombard Ave.

A classmate of Nancy’s, who identified himself only as “Andy,” posted about her on a reunion website for Palisades High (pali65.com). Reflecting on Winter Class of ’65, Andy had picked up on Nancy’s groove after running into her at their 40th class reunion. His post read, in part:

“Nancy Bayliss is amazing. She still wears that wonderful grin like she’s figured out something the rest of us haven’t. Still the original vegetarian, recycling hippie, she swims and practices yoga. Her bio on the reunion website is one of my favorites; it has so much energy, it knocked me on my butt.”

Another Winter ’65 classmate of Nancy’s, Roger McGrath, recalled last seeing her in 1964. He told the Palisadian-Post, “I remember Nancy as an artistic free spirit.”

I would find out she was no downer as a child either. Karen Horn was a Palisades childhood friend of Nancy.

“I remember sitting on the curb on Friends Street with Nancy one day in the 1950s, looking out into wild Potrero Canyon, and eating pomegranates we’d picked off street trees.” Horn would add, “Even in childhood, she was a radiant person, someone you would always hope to have at a party.”

No doubt, Nancy had many childhood friends while attending Palisades Elementary, Paul Revere, and Pali High.

As a kid, Nancy also made pals with animals. Ernie recalls his wife once telling him about a neighbor of hers on Lombard, who  was “always rescuing animals. And Nancy would help her administer to them, leading to a lifetime of being any animal’s best friend.”

Cool! Ernie told the Palisadian-Post that “Nancy described herself as a hippie, always searching for something.”

Right on!

Now the Palisades can remember an honorary hippie in Nancy Bayliss Robertson.