Poetic License

When Bill Schneider grew old, people began to comment on the eerie similarities.

The mane of white hair, a face etched by the wisdom that comes from hard experience, the grave, not quite gruff, demeanor. “You know who you look like?” they would ask.

“Yes, yes, I know,” he would wearily reply. “Carl Sandburg.”

Then one day, the former merchant seaman, pesticide applicator, truck driver, teacher and, finally, actor, realized that he and the dead poet might have a future together.

Now, word-of-mouth and a talent agent keep him booked portraying Sandburg once or twice a month, mostly for service clubs and high school English classes. Dressed in a baggy suit, he reads Sandburg’s poetry in a sonorous voice and answers questions about the man’s life. Next weekend at Cal Lutheran University’s Scandinavian Festival, he will again bring to life the man who gave eloquence and dignity to the voice of the common man.

It’s a role Schneider is proud to play. Though the poet is known best for his work celebrating industrial America and the men who built it, Schneider feels closest to him when he reads what Sandburg wrote about relationships. “I think it takes age to understand what he meant,” he said.

After years of portraying and researching Sandburg, Schneider believes their similarities go deeper than facial bone structure and hair color.

Both were born in a simpler time--Sandburg in 1878 and Schneider in 1918--with the Great Depression and World War II looming ahead.

Both were reared with an appreciation for men and women who labored with their hands, Sandburg as an impressionable youth whose imagination was ignited by the stockyards in Chicago, Schneider, growing up on a walnut farm in Saticoy.

And both worked hard as young men at whatever odd jobs came their way.

These things sometimes cause Schneider to choke up as he reads Sandburg’s writing.

“Carl Sandburg was a very intelligent person and there were always those around him who recognized his worth and helped him along--gave him a job or some other assistance when he needed it,” Schneider said. “That is our greatest bond. People were also always there helping me.”

*

After elementary school in Saticoy, Schneider attended high school and junior college in Ventura and in 1939 went to USC. Working his way through college, he attended a semester, dropped out long enough to earn money to pay his tuition, then returned to classes.

Over the years, he has been a fast-pitch softball pitcher, a truck driver, a produce laborer and a school custodian. He also traveled the world on a fuel tanker. In 1962--after working 14 years in pest control, exterminating worms in walnuts--he found his way into teaching.

“I was broke when a friend called up and told me I was going to teach fifth-graders beginning Monday,” recalled Schneider. “By summer, I had my teaching credentials and I taught school for 20 years.”

After retiring from teaching in 1982, he became an actor, working on various TV commercials. His plain, everyman’s face can be seen on billboards promoting banks and HMOs.

Portraying Sandburg was not something Schneider ever planned to do.

*

“When I’d go to auditions, I’d find myself sitting in a waiting room surrounded by a bunch of old guys, and while we were sitting there talking, I’d often be told that I ought to do Sandburg,” Schneider said.

That repeated suggestion, a vintage suit he had bought years before to go with his restored Model A, some research and a new haircut were all he needed to get started.

Retired Cal Lutheran librarian Aina Abrahamson, 83, who saw the real Sandburg when she was a little girl in Mankato, Minn., in the 1920s, was so impressed with Schneider’s portrayal that she recommended he be included in the university’s Scandinavian Festival activities. Sandburg’s family emigrated from Sweden.

Schneider will perform at CLU in Thousand Oaks at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Schneider is so convincing that some people think he is Carl Sandburg. The greatest problem is knowing what to do when they come up to him after a performance and ask for an autograph. He knows they will be disappointed if he signs his real name--so he signs both.

“Once, a college student came up and wanted me to help him get his poetry published,” he recalled.