Bill Dowey of Malibu, who was active in the community, including the Optimists Club and a writer who contributed numerous poems to The Malibu Times, died on Tuesday from cancer. He was 84.
A memorial service will take place on Friday at 11 a.m. at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, 28221 PCH. 310.457.7966 In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Cancer Foundation or the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.
A more extensive write-up about Dowey’s life will appear in the next issue.
The following is a poem that Dowey wrote in September of 2002.
Old Malibu
You were my young wife, I was your stud
In a dimly remembered time.
We slipped and slid through the Malibu mud
And ignored the dust and the grime
As we fashioned our humble cabins here
By an unpolluted sea,
From boards and bits and no permits
And life was wild and free.
Freely we lived and freely we loved
And soon the children came,
Followed by horses and chickens and doves;
As many as we could name.
No limit to four as a household score,
We saddled up western style,
And rode and roped and always hoped
“No fence another mile.”
We were pioneers, so we thought
Untouched by a Coastal Commission.
But county inspectors occasionally caught
Us and demanded humble submission.
We cleared the brush away from the door
Lest the fires of hell burn bright,
And we loaded our cars with portable bars
And fled into the night.
But that seems a thousand years ago
When these hills were undisturbed
By mansions and walls and great egos,
And life went unperturbed.
From dawn to dusk, from year to year
We lived the seasons through.
And the years rolled on and our youth was gone
And so was Old Malibu.
-Bill Dowey