By JIMMY DUNNE
Photos: RICH SCHMITT
23,000 B.C.
Put about a thousand “Greats” in a row before the words “Grandma and Grandpa.” The year is 23,000 B.C.? A tad hairy, but they’re family. Picture ‘em enjoying a lovely sunset together, holding hands around a cracklin’ fire with their band of thirty more of your relatives and their best pals.
Maybe on the Tibetan Plateau, or in the Nile Valley of Africa. Maybe your peeps were in Beringia (cooking up a tasty woolly mammoth the teenagers speared that day).
Here’s what they all shared in common. When it was time to move on from their band’s cave, or their mud hut, or their bison skin tent—they just all filled up their trusty backpack with their favorite tools and treasures—and off they went, as a band, to the next charming spot down the way.
Here’s why I’m yapping about all this. Home—to them—was wherever they went. Town wasn’t the cave, or the beachfront hut property they interior decorated in a trendy “branches & leaves” style on the Red Sea.
“Town” was them.
That’s what mattered. Staying together. Figuring it out. They protected each other, shared with each other, comforted each other.
2025
Fast-forward 25,000 years and about a thousand romantic rendezvous later. It’s ten in the morning, under a clear baby-blue April sky—at temporary bocce courts on the lawn bowling courts at Douglas Park in Santa Monica.
It’s kind of like an African prairie, but the grass was mowed. And not a single “lions, tigers and bears” in sight. Just a whole bunch of the most wonderful people, all there to play bocce.
Sort of.
All lived in the Palisades before the fire on that January night. Along with a thousand Palisadians, they played on a team together every week at Veterans Gardens at the Recreation Center.
The reason I said “sort of” — is because they really weren’t there today to play bocce. They were there to be together. To hug each other. To share their stories and their worries and their challenges—and to hold the blanket of each other’s eyes. That’s why they come, every week, since the January 7 Palisades Fire. For that.
I was standing on one of the make-shift courts with everyone else. It was about an hour after we started, and I looked over about fifty yards away. I saw one of my favorite faces from our bocce days in the Palisades.
Pippa Orecklin. Tip-toeing into her seventies. A face where you see the childhood girl in her smile. They don’t make ‘em any better.
Standing by herself, Pippa was just looking over at so many of her friends in her bocce “band” from months ago before the fire. I saw her break down crying. By herself.
I went over to her and hugged her. She was weeping hard in my arms.
She told me she hasn’t been ready to go back to see the Palisades. How she had a very difficult surgery on the day of the fire—dealing with real health complications since the surgery.
And here she was. Looking at these friends for the first time. Remembering those feelings with all of them that they’ve shared. And realizing how she needs them now, more than ever.
I realized something in that moment.
Our “town” was right there on those courts. Town isn’t really about buildings, or homes, or stores. It’s about people. And something else I’ve learned.
What this word means…Palisadians.
One of the kindest, caring, beautiful, loving words in the world.
Our band will be back. Oh, we’ll be back. You can burn our buildings to the ground. You can turn our homes to ashes. But you can’t burn our town.
Our town is alive. And it’s more beautiful than ever. With a heart that’s pounding harder than it’s ever pounded before.
I dream of the days ahead. Seeing you. Hugging you. Many in new “huts and tents.” And we’ll all look up at that night sky, at the wonder of it all.
And know where the Palisades is. Right in our hearts. The most stunning home of them all.
(Editor’s Note: Jimmy Dunne is a modern-day Renaissance Man; a hit songwriter with songs on 28 million hit records; songs, scores, and themes in over a thousand television episodes and many hit films; a screenwriter and producer of hit television shows; award-winning book author; an entrepreneur—and a past Palisades’ “Citizen of the Year.” Reach out to him at j@jimmydunne)
This is beautiful Jimmy Dunne! Thank you for this much needed heartfelt and heartwarming perspective 🙏
Jimmy Dunne, you are one of a kind! Your spirit and determination to give back to the community we all cherish is evident in all you do! I will do my best to get my mom, Patty Burns out to join the gang from this point forward. She has settled in nicely at Ocean House on the beach in Santa Monica, and she so misses the camaraderie of her bocce ball peeps! Keep’ em rolling straight!