‘Mr. Positive,’ a fixture of St. Paul’s West 7th, dies

On snowy days, Carl Bentson would be out early, shoveling and working his snow blower to clear his neighbors’ sidewalks in St. Paul’s W. 7th neighborhood near his home on St. Clair Avenue.

But on Wednesday, the day before the first big snow of this winter, Bentson died. He was 62.

“He was an amazing little man,” said Tim Rumsey, his doctor and friend. “He never complained. He always had a smile on his face.”

Bentson was one more than 160 foster children raised by St. Paul’s Vashti Risdall, who took him in from a state institution for children with developmental disabilities. Bentson was born with Cornelia de Lange syndrome, a genetic condition that causes intellectual and behavioral disabilities. He attended the Bridge View School in St. Paul and worked there as a custodian for decades.

As an adult, Bentson moved into a house on St. Clair near W. 7th that Rumsey said his friend decorated for every holiday. The yard was meticulous; the sidewalks were clear. And at Halloween, Bentson would give out candy bars and bottles of pop.

“One Halloween, he ran out of treats and he started giving food away from his refrigerator,” Rumsey said. “And the last kid of the night got a bottle of French’s mustard.”

Bentson was never able to drive — despite an abiding love for classic cars. So he got around on a succession of tricycles he kitted out with awnings and windshields to keep out the elements, and with lots of lights and reflectors to make sure he was visible.

“Have you seen the guy with a three-wheeled bicycle with a hundred lights?”

That’s how filmmaker Mike Hazard remembers Rumsey introducing him to Bentson and urging Hazard to make a documentary about Bentson’s life. The eventual film, directed and edited with Rumsey’s daughter Emily Rumsey, was titled Mr. Positive.

Rumsey and Hazard estimated that at his peak, Bentson rode more than 8,000 miles a year. He would often climb the long hill up St. Clair east from W. 7th, even on the heavy tricycle. Hazard said he had been spotted as far afield as Stillwater.

Making the film and getting to know the always cheerful Bentson shifted Hazard’s outlook, he said. To this day, he thinks of him whenever he picks up a piece of litter from the sidewalk — a habit he got from Bentson.

After Risdall’s death in 2003, Bentson celebrated birthdays and holidays with neighbor and friend Karen Koeppe and her family. As Bentson got older, Koeppe became a caretaker for him after he spent years helping her take care of her yard.

If he saw any neighbor working in their yard, Koeppe said, Bentson asked if he could help.

This year, Koeppe said, Bentson was diagnosed with advanced esophageal cancer. He collapsed Wednesday afternoon after a round of chemotherapy.

Even as paramedics worked on her friend, Koeppe said, neighbor after neighbor stopped over, asking if Bentson was OK. So many people had come to know and care about Bentson from his life of smiling, saying hello and helping his neighbors.

“He started with so little in life,” Koeppe said, “and achieved so much.”