Every neighborhood should have a Carl Bentson. Bentson, who lived in St. Paul’s West End, was the neighbor who made sure everyone’s yards got mowed and sidewalks got shoveled. He weeded. He picked up trash. He kept an eye out for speeders and abandoned cars. Ice forms in Carl Bentson’s beard and mustache on Dec. 12, 2016, as he clears sidewalks near Colborne Street and St. Clair Avenue in St. Paul as the temperature dipped below zero for the first time of the winter. (Scott Takushi / Pioneer Press) Bentson was the West End’s “guardian angel,” said Tim Rumsey, a longtime friend and physician who worked in the neighborhood. “Once, I followed a trail of his from snowblowing that was two miles long, right up St. Clair Avenue,” he said. “He just kept going.” Bentson died Dec. 18 at his home on St. Clair Avenue of complications related to esophageal cancer. He was 62. Thanks to Bentson, friend and neighbor Kurt Wescott said he didn’t have to get out of bed to learn if it had snowed overnight. “At 5 o’clock in the morning, I would hear a snowblower coming down my sidewalk,” Wescott said. “Or if it was a light snow, he would use a lawnmower to blow the snow away. It was a wonderful treat to wake up with no snow on my sidewalk. He was such a good guy. Every neighborhood would be 100 percent better with a Carl Bentson in it.” Bentson cared for his neighbors, and those neighbors cared for him, said Mike Hazard, a friend and filmmaker who featured Bentson in his 2007 documentary, “Mr. Positive” (available at youtube.com/@michaelhazard). “I liken the vision that he offered to the spokes of a bicycle,” Hazard said. “He was both at the center of the wheel and also on the rim. The community was supporting him from all directions, and yet he also was radiating a model of being a good citizen. It’s the way the world should be.” DON BOXMEYER 2007 COLUMN: The world according to Carl Hazard, who has documented the lives of Robert Bly, Tiger Jack Rosenbloom, U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy and many others, said meeting Bentson changed his life. “To this day, I cannot pass a piece of trash without picking it up and thinking of Carl,” he said. “I’ve made more than 200 films, but if I got to save only one, I think ‘Mr. Positive’ would be it. It appeals to all ages, all backgrounds, to people all over the world. Carl, he had that radiance. Whenever I have felt down, I could feel Carl’s positive presence saying, ‘You can do it.’” A friend of Hazard’s once screened “Mr. Positive” for her sixth-grade students in Fargo, N.D., he said, and the 30-minute documentary had a “profound impact” on them. “After watching the film, these incorrigible elementary students decided it would be great if everyone found someone in their neighborhood, whether it was Grandma or the next-door neighbor or whatever, any age, they would just help out,” he said. Foster child Bentson was born in Winnebago, Minn., with a rare genetic condition called Cornelia de Lange Syndrome that can cause dwarfism and physical and mental handicaps. He was given up by his parents and spent his early years at the Cambridge, Minn., State Hospital. When the hospital switched to community placement, Bentson, then 4, was placed with Vashti Risdall, one of Ramsey County’s premier foster mothers. Risdall fostered 162 children during her tenure; Bentson lived with her for 23 years. Risdall died in 2003 at age 100, but she was interviewed at length in “Mr. Positive” talking about Bentson, who, even after he had moved out on his own, would push his snowblower two miles to her house to clear her walks. Bentson attended Bridge View School, St. Paul Public Schools’ special-education school. After he graduated in 1985, he started working as a janitor at the school. He worked there for 39 years, retiring in May. “They knew he would be a good employee because he was a good student,” Rumsey said. “He loved to clean.” Pioneer Press columnist Don Boxmeyer wrote about Bentson in 1999. The headline read: “The Guardian Angel / Carl Bentson’s exceptional mind and manners have won him the admiration of St. Paul’s West End.” “Carl’s forte is washing, mopping and picking up,” Boxmeyer wrote. “He is such an enthusiastic picker-up of refuse and trash that he often goes off the school grounds after it, and must be reminded that there is no requirement that he clean up the railroad tracks or the nearby private yards.” During his first fall on the job, Bentson was sent outside to rake the school’s yard, Rumsey said. “It was a job that should have taken 15 minutes, and he was out there for two hours,” he said. “His supervisor finally looked out, and there was Carl. He was shaking the little saplings to get all the leaves off the trees.” In 1990, Bentson purchased his home on St. Clair Avenue. He cherished his independence. “I cook everything and barbecue out front while I watch the traffic go by,” he told Boxmeyer in 1999. “Last night I cooked lamb chops. I do fish, chicken, hamburger and hot dishes. Once in a while, I’ll bake a cake.” Related Articles News Obituaries | ‘Mr. Baseball’ Bob Uecker, Brewers announcer, dies at 90 News Obituaries | Obituary: Beej Chaney, original Suburbs punk-rock guitarist, dies at 67 News Obituaries | Former CNN anchor Aaron Brown, who helped viewers through the Sept. 11 attacks, has died News Obituaries | Linda Lavin, Tony-winning Broadway actor who starred in the landmark sitcom ‘Alice,’ dies at 87 News Obituaries | Notable quotes by Jimmy Carter Bentson had “savant syndrome” and an extraordinary photographic memory, especially when it came to cars, Rumsey said. “He was a genius,” Rumsey said. “His area of interest was cars. I mean, he literally knew everything about every car that ever existed. He had all these car manuals and memorized the stuff about the engines and the colors and the different models. It was just unbelievable. As cars would go by, he would say, ‘There’s a such-and-such,’ and ‘There’s a such-and-such.’ He knew them all. He’d go to the car show at the (Minnesota) State Fairgrounds, and he would tell the people there about their cars, stuff they didn’t know.” Bentson never got a driver’s license. He tooled around town on a customized three-wheel bicycle festooned with flags, mirrors, reflectors, a canopy, a windshield off a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and dozens of lights. He pedaled an estimated 9,000 miles a year, traveling to Red Wing, Stillwater, Taylors Falls, Forest Lake, Lindstrom, the State Fairgrounds and other sites. Winter Carnival fan Carl Bentson heads for home after a day’s work at Bridge View School on St. Paul’s West End in April 1999. His tricycle — with its lights, homemade top and reflectors — takes him everywhere in the Twin Cities and beyond. “Carl is the guardian angel of lower St. Clair Avenue,” says Dr. Tim Rumsey, one of many residents in the neighborhood who look out for the 36-year-old. (Andy Clayton-King / Pioneer Press) Friends and neighbors hope to honor Bentson – and his trademark trike – during this year’s Winter Carnival Grande Day Parade, which was one of his favorite events in St. Paul, Wescott said. “He always rode in a sidecar on a friend’s motorcycle and tossed candy to the crowd,” he said. Plans call for a friend to tow Bentson’s three-wheeled bicycle behind his motorcycle during the Jan. 25 parade with a sign acknowledging Bentson’s Dec. 18 death, he said. Friends also are planning to celebrate Bentson’s life this spring with an event at the Czech-Slovak Protective Society Hall, said Karen Koeppe, a longtime friend and neighbor. Koeppe became one of Bentson’s best friends after she moved to the West End. The two often went grocery shopping and to medical appointments together, she said. “We just started doing things together,” she said. “I was alone, he was alone. I found out he did his grocery shopping with his bike, so I invited him to go grocery shopping with me.” When Risdall got too old to watch out for Bentson, she asked Koeppe, now 81, to step in. “It went way beyond taking care of,” she said. “He was very important in my life. He was family.” The two vacationed together through the years, including trips to Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota and the North Shore, she said. “He was such a wonderful friend to people,” she said. “I was lucky to have him.” Bentson never uttered a negative word about anyone or anything, said Rumsey, former director of United Family Practice Health Center. “He was so genuine and innocent, and so kind and hardworking,” he said. “I never heard him complain once about anything. His cancer? Certainly not. His lot in life? No complaints. Ever. He was just a positive man.” Related Articles News Obituaries | The Rex, a Winter Carnival pop-up bar, to open at Russell’s on Grand Avenue News Obituaries | Meet the eight candidates for Aurora, Queen of the Snows of the 2025 St. Paul Winter Carnival News Obituaries | Photos: Volunteers brave the cold to stomp snow at Vulcan Snow Park News Obituaries | Joe Soucheray: House DFL rolls by different rules than the rest of us. About going to work, for example. News Obituaries | Whimsical St. Paul retailer Poppy to close last store Rumsey suggested that Hazard feature Bentson in a documentary; Rumsey’s daughter, Emily, co-directed and edited the 30-minute film. The film was produced by Hazard at his Center for International Education and premiered in 2007 at the West Seventh Community Center. “Watching the documentary inspires viewers of all ages and backgrounds to imagine how they can do things to make their neighborhoods better and their neighbors happy,” according to the documentary’s notes posted on YouTube. “Carl took the time to smell the roses and to thank people,” Hazard said. “He made me feel like I want to be a better citizen and care about my neighbors. He taught me that it’s not what we have; it’s what we do with what we are, with who we are. He is a lesson for us all.” Carl Bentson memorial Plans are in the works for a celebration of Carl Bentson’s life this spring at the Czech-Slovak Protective Society Hall in St. Paul. Email [email protected] to receive updates. The Pioneer Press also will publish details when available.