StreetScape: Bill Dunn It
Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille. Click to enlarge
Here was the moment. It is the day apres les election primary. It is the corner of Quarrier and Hale streets. Here comes Charleston's famous street person and Hollywood inspiration, Bill Dunn, piloting his grocery cart world across Quarrier. Up Hale Street comes a woman bearing a big plastic circle of doughnuts, cookies or some other baked goods. Perhaps it is the spoils from an election night winner (or loser's) campaign after-party. Perhaps it is the morning sweetmeats from a Charleston coal baron's staff meetings. She says to Bill something like: "Would you like a doughnut?" Bill mutters a negatory over his shoulder and rolls onward to wherever he goes.
8 Comments:
I see stranger things than "Agualung" out of this window.
Ooops!! I just saw that I spelled Aqualung wrong. Pardon!!!!!!
Here is a poem once heard about this man at Taylor Books one eve:
You take away his name
when you call him 'Aqualung.'
Bill Dunn. Bill Dunn.
Bill Dunn.
Try it
on your tongue.
Does anyone know more of his 'backstory,' as they say in Hollywood?
No offense meant about the "name" issue but that's all I've ever known him as. It wasn't intended as derogatory.
As to his story....only bits and pieces that I couldn't say is fact.
Oh, I know that. I once heard he once was a lawyer, but that doesn't seem quite possible. I have seen him sitting listening to baseball games on a small radio.
Between stints at college, I once worked for a short time as a dishwasher at Ernie's Esquire on Capitol Street. This was in the 1970s. Bill used to come around the back in the early evening to sift through the dumpster. Whenever a half-eaten steak or some stale rolls came my way, I'd try to leave them on top for him. He never said much, but once he told me, "Never quit your job."
My father-in-law is a retired Charleston cop and has tons of stories about Bill - he's sort of an unofficial family friend. Bill once helped solve a homicide by bringing my FIL some evidence he found in a trashcan.
I read about him on a blog. I am in Florida. I have never met Bill but from everything I have read, this guy is in so many peoples hearts. Please someone sit down with him and find out more about him! I hope when his time comes everyone will rally together and make sure his resting place is well marked and remembered.
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