Press Clippings

Following is a feature story which was printed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on June 3, 2003. The story delves into one element of the personality of the neighborhood. Story printed with permission.

The oldest hippie

Poet and bouncer "Uncle Bill" Green is a fixture at Benton Park's Venice Cafe

by Joe Holleman

"Uncle Bill" Green looks like an old hippie. Good thing, because he is an old hippie.

Calling himself The World's Most Dangerous Poet, Green, 59, has been taking cover charges, reciting his poetry and escorting rowdies out of the Venice Cafe since the Benton Park nightspot opened in 1988.

Before that, he worked the door at the Broadway Oyster Bar downtown for about 10 years.

5-25/04: Allen Scharf.
To satisfy the exotic tastes of city dwellers, fresh asparagus from the Scharf Farm, Millstadt, Il., is unloaded by Allen Scharf at the Soulard Farmers' Market. In addition to part-time farming, Allen is the superintendent of the Millstadt Consolidated School. (People Productions photo by Clark Rowley)

Green writes a new poem for each of his Venice performances, which are on Fridays and Saturdays. "There's an Irish saying that if you read a poem in a bar, you're a poet," he said.

This poet got his start at Deaconess Hospital in 1944, but his parents soon moved to Chicago and then Kansas City, where he graduated from high school in 1962.

"The movie 'American Graffiti' - that was my life. We did spend a whole lot of time driving around and listing to XERF," the pirate radio station that featured Wolfman Jack, he said. "But we drank a lot more beer than they did in the movie."

Green enlisted in the Navy in 1962. "I thought joining the Navy was the laziest form of draft-resisting."

Instead of going on active duty, he spent three years in the reserves and attended college. "I majored in beer. I learned how to drink real good at Mizzou."

By doing his reserve stint first, Green owed the Navy two years of active service.

"Real bad timing on my part. If I'd went in right away in 1962, I'd have spent two years in the Mediterranean chasing Italian women," he said. "Instead, I went active in '65 and spent a year in Vietnam on the aircraft carrier Intrepid."

Mustering out in 1967, he returned to Kansas City and worked odd jobs for a few months "and got into being a hippie."

It was at a "love-in" at a Kansas City park, to which he took his two nephews, that he picked up his nickname.

"They kept called me 'Uncle Bill,' and my friends got a real kick out of it," he said.

In 1968, Green headed to Colorado. When asked for details, Green smiled slyly and said, "My memories of these years are a little fuzzy. I worked in a vegetarian restaurant in Boulder, which was the only legit job I had. Let's just say that I made a lot of money in 1968, and then gave it to lawyers in 1969."

After a six-month stint in a county jail, Green realized it was time to get out of Denver. In 1969, he headed to Haight-Asbury in San Francisco.

"It was still happening there in '69," he said. "I can't remember how many times I saw the Grateful Dead, at the Fillmore, Golden Gate Park, The Family Dog. I also saw the Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Janis Joplin at the time. I was at the Fillmore at least once a week."

Those two years in San Francisco "were strange and wonderful times. In St. Louis, if you're in a park with a jug of wine, you're a wino. Back then in San Francisco, you were a Bohemian."

In 1971, "I simply burned out. My folks had retired to their home in Piedmont (about 120 miles south of St. Louis), and I went back there to gather my wits."

2-17/04: l to r: Lena Rowley, Olga Petrenko, Natalya Naumenko.
Eight Russian governmental officials visited St. Louis in mid-February on a Department of State tour. While in Soulard, Russian-speaking Lena Rowley from Benton Park, left, talked with Olga Petrenko, middle, from Novosibirsk, and Natalya Naumenko from Omsk. They were interested in neighborhood organizations and how neighborhoods interface with government in order to accomplish local objectives.

He moved up to St. Louis in 1973, was married briefly and divorced, and he became part of the emerging Soulard neighborhood.

"I belonged to the Soulard Culture Squad," he said. "Our motto was: 'Join or die.' We would convince bar owners to let us have poetry readings and we would guarantee them a nice crowd on a Monday night.

"But some of the old patrons sure as hell didn't want to hear poetry," he said, laughing. "We actually had a few fist fights at poetry readings."

Green hooked up with Venice Cafe owner Jeff Lockheed in the late 1980's.

"Jeff used to come into the Oyster Bar. He told me he was opening a place and asked if I wanted to be the doorman," Green said. "I've been here ever since."

Lockheed said: "People just expect him to be at the door. He's part of this place. My favorite is when he dresses up in his wizard costume to read his poetry."

But can the man actually bounce people?"You'd be surprised," Lockheed said. "He can be a pit bull. He surprises people, and I've seen him throw out his fair share of folks.

Green shrugs it off.

"I quit drinking 19 years ago," he said. "I'm just a lot more sober than the people I need to throw out."

Green said he recently celebrated his 20th anniversary with his wife, Martha Rose, and the two have been traveling on a regular basis.

"Life is so sweet, so good, right now," said Green, adding that such good luck has him wary. But at least that feeling inspired him to pen a haiku:

Satchmo got it right
It is a wonderful world
Frankly, I'm nervous.