St. Paul's Rice Street loses, then finds piece of the late "Bones" legacy

On St. Paul's Rice Street, so much depended upon Mike "Bones" Hartzell's rusty wheelbarrow.

For four decades, Hartzell loaded the wood-handled cart with the brooms, rakes and spades he used to clean the sidewalks where he spent his days and nights. Shortly after he died at 71 from lung cancer and pneumonia last December, Hartzell's brother offered to donate the wheelbarrow to Kevin Barrett, owner of Dar's Double Scoop, 1048 Rice St. Barrett said he was touched and happy to have it.

"It was one of the last physical things we had of Mike," Barrett said.

So on Friday, when Barrett noticed the wheelbarrow had gone missing from behind his store, he drove up and down nearby alleys in search of it. He had planned for Your Enchanted Florist at 1500 Dale St. N. to festoon the bucket with a distinctive floral arrangement as an upbeat ode to Hartzell.

"I was really upset, but more hurt," Barrett said of the theft. "The person probably didn't have a clue" about the significance of the wheelbarrow.

"My hope was someone would just find it and wheel it back over," he said.

A self-described dinosaur without a social media presence, Barrett said the owner of the nearby Tin Cup's bar and restaurant posted word of the theft to the hundreds of followers on her Facebook page. By Saturday evening — about 24 hours after it had gone missing, Barrett noticed the wheelbarrow was back.

Hartzell's absence is felt along the street that was his world. An estimated 600 people turned out for his funeral, which lasted hours. Barrett said Hartzell took care of the sidewalks and everyone tried to take care of Mike, whom some called Bones because he was so thin. "Everybody would try to look out for him as much as he would let you," Barrett said. "He never asked for anything."

He rebuffed offers of clothing and a warm space to sleep until his final weeks. Barrett said he was able to finally get the ailing Hartzell to sleep in his shop — until the end when he went into hospice.

"He was like family to a lot of people," Barrett said.

On Memorial Day weekend, the Rice Streeters, as they call themselves, reclaimed what they feared was lost just in time for summer flowers.

"Now I think it's going to mean a lot more when it's done," Barrett said.