As an essential worker, Mark Fawcett was making tech support house calls Tuesday in Minneapolis when he thought about someone else who might need a little support.
A bicyclist stops to take a photo of the masked Mary Tyler Moore statue in downtown Minneapolis on March 31, 2020. (Courtesy of Mark Fawcett)
Not “someone,” exactly — the iconic bronze statue of the late actor Mary Tyler Moore, immortalized as she tosses her hat in the air.
Fawcett swung by the downtown corner to check on the beloved symbol of Minnesota Nice. “She was out in the open,” he says, “not protected.”
So the St. Paul man got her kitted out.
“I had been using this mask and these gloves for quite awhile and it was time to dispose of them,” Fawcett said. “I thought it would be fun instead to use them to take care of Mary for the city of Minneapolis.”
(Just to emphasize: Neither the non-medical mask nor the worn gloves were suitable to donate to health care workers. Fawcett’s masks are from a package he had bought for dust protection while woodworking.)
The mask went on easily. The gloves had to be wrapped around Mary’s bronze hands. They immediately got the desired result.
“I saw people stopping to take pictures,” Fawcett said. “I heard some chuckles.”
That was his mission, really. “My point for doing this was to bring a smile to people’s faces,” he said.
Perhaps Mary’s mask — if she’s still wearing it — can also serve as a public service announcement of sorts: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reportedly now considering whether to advise all Americans to wear homemade face masks in public, according to National Public Radio.
As for Mary?
Now that she has proper protection, Fawcett says, “she’s going to make it after all.”
