‘Jimmy Dunne Says’

The Palisadian-Post presents an homage to Will Rogers’ column, “Will Rogers Says,” with a column by Palisadian Jimmy Dunne—on life in the “greatest town in America.”

‘Starter Homes’

It absolutely seems like it was yesterday.

It was 1984; I was 27 and single. I was driving west down Sunset Boulevard through the last community before hitting the ocean. I was on my way to a Fourth of July party in Malibu.

I stumbled into an enchanted place. Pacific Palisades. You could feel that “something” in the air—with the big blue sea and majestic mountains framing this idyllic town.

That day, the curbs of the streets were lined with families and folks of every age imaginable—cheering and loving every second of their town parade.

It took me right back to my growing up days in the suburbs of Chicago—and our beloved town parade.

I looked at the faces of those kids and parents—and I knew right then where I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

There were about five “starter” homes in town on the market, and I bought one smack in the middle of a great, tree-lined block on Bollinger Drive. A welcoming one-story house on a big, wide street. I didn’t know a soul in the town.

As a kid in his late 20s, the down-payment was every nickel I had, looking at a 16% loan at the time.

Price of my house? $225,000.

Looking back, it was the best dough I ever spent that I never had.

For that first year, I pretty much had three things in that house. A big Baldwin grand piano, a bed and a TV.

Plenty.

I started dating a stunning muse from Minnesota, and we married three years later. Best decision I ever made.

“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes two fantastic daughters in a baby carriage.”

Dozens of kids sprouted like sunflowers up and down our Bollinger block. Everybody knew everybody. Young families.

And oldies-but-goodies, like Betty and Evan right across the street. Betty made oatmeal cookies for all the kids, and Evan was the block’s 24/7, go-to handyman. There wasn’t a ladder or tool he didn’t have.

Fabulous high school kids on the block babysat our little girls. We all kept an eye on things—and took in each other’s papers and mail when we’d head out of town. The dads and kids had Saturday “car-washing parties.”

We’d all walk our strollers up to the original Ronnie’s corner store, right next to Vittorio’s (my favorite Italian restaurant in America). You knew the smiling faces of Gordon and Shirley in their Knolls pharmacy were always there for you.

In the early ’90s, we knocked it down and built a new home on the same spot.

There were 36 kids up and down happy Bollinger Drive. One of my favorite roles I’ve had in life was as Bollinger’s first “mayor” for most of the ’90s.

We had “Bollinger Talent Shows” (with kids as jugglers, dancers, singers, poets, gymnasts, musicians, magicians) and “Bollinger Plays” on the front lawn we shared with our neighbors.

We had “Bollinger Easter Egg Hunts,” a “Bollinger Newsletter” that the kids on the block wrote, and all the moms and dads shared this tiny blue bike (“The Bollinger Bike”) to teach the little ones to ride.

We’d close down the block for the “Labor Day Block Party.” Dads grilled hotdogs and burgers, and families brought potluck potato salads and pies. We had egg-toss contests, musical chairs (for the cocktailed-up adults, too), water-slide contests on the lawns and all kinds of nonsense.

We all belonged to something wonderful and important in our lives.

Our block.

This morning, on a Sunday bike ride around town, I drove by a handful of starter homes with “for sale” signs on the front lawns.

The prices today?

About $2.5 million.

That’s ten times more today.

Here’s what I saw and felt looking in the small rear-view mirror on the left side of my bike as I drove past those homes down those wonderful streets in town.

Life goes so, so fast.

I sure wish I would have stopped more along the way—to appreciate what was right out my door. I wish I would have taken more time to hear everything those trees blanketing our homes, and the mountains and the warm waters were trying to tell me.

As these summer days open like a flower, a number of wonderful, young families are going to move into these wonderful starter homes on their own tree-blanketed Palisadian street.

Their kids will probably go to one of the many, many terrific schools right in town, with many of the families in one of the parishes or synagogues right down the road.

The parents will probably sit in the stands and cheer for their kids at little league games at the park, they’ll take family hikes up in the canyons, and they’ll bump into friends at restaurants, at barber shops and stores in town.

And probably, from portable beach chairs on the curbs of Sunset, they’ll be drawn to the pure joy in their kids’ eyes at our Fourth of July parade.

Maybe they’ll have their own Betty and Evan on their own block.

And after dropping the kids off at school in the morning, the young dads or moms will head off to work.

The drive home won’t seem so bad, dreaming about seeing their flowering, beautiful, wondrous family.

Those starter homes—it’s a lot of money.

But it’ll be the best dough they’ll ever spend that they never had.

Jimmy Dunne is modern-day Renaissance Man; a hit songwriter (28 million hit records), screenwriter/ producer of hit television series, award-winning author, an entrepreneur—and a Palisadian “Citizen of the Year.” You can reach him at j@jimmydunne.com.