SALUTE TO SENIORS: Ocean Air Brought George Graveline to the Palisades in 1945, Haircuts Keep 94-Year-Old Coming Back

By MICHAEL OLDHAM | Special to the Palisadian-Post

Like thousands of young American men in 1942, George Graveline began serving his country during WWII. Graveline, now 94, proudly told the Palisadian-Post, “I enlisted” for the three-year stint.

At the time he entered the Air Force, he was in his twenties, married to a beautiful blonde-haired wife and the proud father of a 1-year-old son Wayne. The future Palisadian trained to be a gunner for B-29 bombers.

In 1945, Graveline got out of the war “in one piece,” as the war ended just before he “was gonna see combat.” And though he commented, “war is not good,” he firmly stated he “was glad to stand up” for the rights of his country.

With the war and his military duties behind him, Graveline came back to the land of Southern California. It was an area he knew well since he was raised in Canoga Park, arriving there a year and half after his 1921 birth in Ohio.

The Cleveland-born Graveline was a young man without a home for his now two-kid household. Graveline’s daughter Diana had been welcomed into the family in 1944.

Graveline said he “wandered around Southern California” looking for a place to live. One day, he saw the Palisades and thought it was “a real nice spot” and he “decided it was a good place to live.”

What in particular did Graveline like about Pacific Palisades?

“The area being on the Westside, close to the sea,” he said.

Graveline also found the Palisades of the mid-1940s to his liking because it was “a local community…a small community.” He determined it was a “nice place to raise the kids.”

And so, in late 1945, he “bought a plot of land on De Pauw Street for $1,400.” A GI loan—a benefit of serving his country—helped with the purchase. Next, he had a home built on the lot for “close to or below $8,000, but I can’t remember the exact amount.”

In 1946, Graveline moved his family into their new single-story, two-bedroom, one-bathroom house on De Pauw. He recalled the house and its total price as “average” for the neighborhood— a price that was typical for a “middle class” earner. (Today, the home is valued at more than $2 million, according to Zillow.com.)

The handsome, six-foot Graveline was a happy, newly minted Palisadian.

Soon he found himself in need of what any man-about-the-Palisades eventually must get—a haircut—and where else to get one but at the Palisades Barbershop? The shop has since become a local institution of sorts. Graveline sat down in a chair and let the barbershop’s then-owner Vince Mangio trim his dark, wavy, combed-back hair.

Favoring slacks and a short sleeve shirt, Graveline used to drive around the Palisades in his ’41 Chevrolet running errands at local stores such as Norris Hardware.

At the time, the Palisades had only “a few stores…a barbershop…Palisades Grammar School was there…there was no high school.” He added, “There wasn’t much.” For the Canoga Park High graduate, that was what was so appealing about the community.

A second daughter, Bonnie, was born in 1947, giving her older siblings a little sister to watch over. Graveline allowed the kids to run around and explore the Palisades and said it was a safe place for kids to play. That “was one of the reasons I moved up there,” Graveline recalled.

Did Graveline have a need to lock the doors of his De Pauw Street home?

“No,” he said.

Did he have to lock up his Chevy when parking it in town?

“I probably locked it,” He said, quickly adding with a chuckle, “but I don’t think I would’ve had to back then.”

By the close of the 1940s, he had become a member of the Pacific Palisades Men’s Club, which was located on Swarthmore Avenue. In fact, Graveline was one of “many members who got in there with nails and hammers and built the [darn] thing.”

A friend and neighbor of Graveline’s was also a fellow Men’s Club member. His name was Earl Lachman, and he was the man who would eventually develop Marquez Knolls and other Palisades neighborhoods. The two buddies often chatted “while working in our backyards.”

Graveline met Lachman because their property lots “backed into each other’s.”

In 1958, Graveline and his family moved to a house on Chapala Drive in the Huntington. Daughter Bonnie reflected, “I loved our De Pauw Street house and all the kids on our block…but looking back, I don’t know how our family of five was able to share the one bathroom it had.”

Graveline too called the four-bedroom Chapala house “definitely a move up.” It had a large family room and was well suited for the many parties the family hosted.

The Chapala house brought Graveline a new next-door neighbor and friend named Stuart Krieger. Krieger had a son, Robby Krieger, who went on to musical fame as the guitarist and singer-songwriter for one of rock history’s greatest bands of all time, The Doors.

Graveline said he watched Robby “grow up just from a little kid.”

While on Chapala, Bonnie remembers her father taking them to the House of Lee on Sunset Boulevard for dinners. Bonnie recalled the Chinese restaurant, which has since been replaced by Pearl Dragon, as “our favorite in the Palisades.”

For Graveline, living on Chapala Drive in the 1960s was noticeably different than his earlier days on De Pauw in the 1940s. Foremost was an increase in traffic. Puttering around the Palisades in the family’s blue Pontiac station wagon was somewhat more time consuming, now.

Graveline had an out-of-town auto parts business to drive to each day. In the 1940s, his daily commute was a breeze.

Did it take longer in the 1960s?

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Graveline recalled.  “I used to drive into my store in Beverly Hills in 20 minutes. It was at least [double] that by the 1960s.”

All good things come to an end and Graveline permanently moved away from his beloved Pacific Palisades in the early 1970s. His last home in the Palisades was located on Glenhaven Drive in Marquez Knolls.

What is Graveline like as a father?

Daughter Bonnie described her 94-year old dad as “sharp as a tack.” He’s also a teller of jokes, and furthermore, “he knows how to tell them!”

What does Graveline miss about the Palisades?

“Well, I still go up and get my hair cut at the same barbershop,” he said.

Indeed, 69 years after he got that first trim from Vince Mangio, Graveline still gets his hair cut at the Palisades Barbershop on Antioch Street. The only thing that has changed is the name of his barber—now current owner Joe Almaraz—and the color of his hair, now silver and gray.

When asked about his longtime customer, Almaraz commented, “George Graveline? He’s been [coming] here forever. He’s just a wonderful man.”