Submitted by an anonymous reader. As with all legends, take with your own preferred level of grains of salt. And of course, if you have anything to add, or can share local legends and stories you have heard, please do.
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

You’ve heard the song. You’ve been over the bridge. You’ve eaten the tangerines off the trees under marmalade skies. Here’s one story of how it came about.

The story has it that sometime around 1966-67, John Lennon came to the Ojai Valley. He was here on a spiritual quest, to hobnob with Krishnamurti and his coterie and shoot the shit with some of the hangers-on.

Out in the east end, Krishnamurti was hanging out with some wild cats, who were lubricated with plenty of LSD and enlightenment. The Valley was beautiful as always, but particularly so to a denizen of dreary England who found himself surrounded by this epitome of crazy California happenings, amidst a smattering of tangerine trees in the East End.

Anyway, they say the party got particularly interesting as the sun prepared to set. The sky was a brilliant marmalade orange. There was some wine being shared. Someone was playing a guitar, and another was reading Steinbeck’s “The Pearl” out loud, in time to the groove. The creek near the property was running, water tumbling over the boulders, and there were three long haired hipsters who were making paper boats out of pages from the day’s L.A. Times and floating them into the creek, where they would go for ten or fifteen feet and then sink instantly.

You all probably know the bridge that is right there on MacAndrew Road over the creek by the Krishnamurti Library. This little gathering was said to be just up the creek from that bridge.

Anyway, Lennon’s eyes kept catching those of a beautiful girl whose face was hidden behind these large sunglasses that reflected the setting sun and sky and pink moment in a kaleidoscope of colors. She would blush and smile when he looked at her. After a little bit, she called him over with a smile. Being extraordinarily high, he slowly, slowly returned her smile, and began to walk the few steps over toward her. He was noticing the flowers that lined the little garden area by the creek bank and smiling at the people hanging about, and when he got to where this beautiful girl had been, she was already gone, walking ahead down the creek with a couple of people.

He followed her down to the bridge, where another group was hanging about, very high. They had a fire going where they were toasting marshmallows, and they were sporadically painting the underside of the bridge. The girl was there, and John Lennon is said to have joined them and painted a little thing on the underside of that bridge, which at least as of a few years ago you could still see if you went up there.

Being John Lennon, it was not too long before word came down that his driver was waiting to take him away. He slowly made his way back up to where his car was waiting, and said his goodbyes, all the while imagining what it would be like to see that girl again in London.
Some people think Lennon penned the words for Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds right there in the back seat that very evening, heading off toward LA down Ojai Avenue on a beautiful starry Ojai night, just a short time before he went into the studio to record Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Tagged as: ojai myths