Goodbye, my friend

I was sitting at the computer in my apartment next to my deck when I heard the sirens.

I looked out the sliding glass door like I usually do and saw an ambulance followed by a police car zipping up the street. I live across the street from the hospital so I thought that's where they were going but they weren's. They turned into the apartment complex where I live and when they went by my window headed for the building behind me, I had that strange feeling that we sometimes get that tells us that something is terribyl wrong.

I left my apartment, walked down the back stairs and out on the sidewalk and saw the ambulance and police car stopped at the first entrance which is where my good friend lives. The apartment manager's wife and I saw each other at almost the same time and she walked towards me with a look of grief on her face. When she got to me, she simply said, "It's Daryl."

The dread I had felt earlier had come to pass. Daryl Bonow was one of the first people I met when I moved to McCook 20 years ago and, because of our shared interests, we quickly became friends. I think it was a love for the St. Louis Cardinals that brought us together initially and then other things kept us together.

We made several trips to Denver to watch the Cardinals play the Rockies and on one of them, I got as sick as I've ever been from eating hot dogs and drinking pre-made margaritas.

A group of us had taken the train out and while they went out to celebrate, I went back to the train station and laid down on the bench. A good friend of ours, Norm the Chef and Coach had gone to a local bar that had the kind of entertainment they both liked but Coach only stayed for a little while, telling Norm they needed to get back to the train station to make sure I was OK.

That's the kind of guy he was.

We went to Las Vegas once and stayed at the Riviera hotel. I can't tell you about all the mischief we got into because this is a family newspaper but I can say we never had a boring minute the whole time we were there. One day we were going to walk over to the Hilton to watch thoroughbred horse racing in their Sports Book and I had gotten to the front door of the hotel when I looked around and saw that Coach wasn't with me.

I looked back behind me and saw him standing by the kitchen door waving his arms at me to come to where he was. When I got there, he said he knew a shortcut.

He had been to Vegas before so I took his word for it. We went through the kitchen and out the back door where the employee parking lot was. It was very wide and long and it took us about 15 minutes of walking to exit it. When we did, I looked up and saw that the Hilton was even further away than it was when we started. I looked at him and yelled "DAMN IT BONOW!" He spread his arms wide and simply said, "Why do you listen to me?"

Our most infamous trip was when we decided to take Amtrak to Reno, Nevada, to see Huey Lewis and the News. Coach and I both loved rock and roll and he loved to dance. He was more excited about that trip than any we made and couldn't wait to get on the train. Since it was almost a two-day trip, we reserved a sleeping car and the trip was made even more enjoyable because two of our other friends, Jim and Carol Lemon, were on the train too on the way to California.

Even though we shared some good times with them on the way out, Coach quickly became disgusted with the lack of progress the train was making towards Reno.

Sometimes we were going so slow that semis were passing us on the Interstate that sometimes ran parallel to the railroad tracks. Other times we were stopping for construction and it got so bad that Coach was afraid we were going to miss the concert. When we finally got to Reno and in our hotel room, I asked him if he wanted, me to get us plane reservations for the trip back home.

After thinking about it for awhile, he said we had already paid for the train and there wasn't any sense incurring extra expenses.

One of his favorite lines was that he was on a fixed income.

We went to the concert which we both agreed was one of the best we had ever attended, partied at the hotel bar until the wee hours of the morning and then left for home the next afternoon on the train again.

The trip back wasn't much different from the trip out except we spent even more time in delays and by the time we got to Benkelman, Coach had his bags packed and was out the door, He told me a couple of days later that it was the worst trip he had ever made and I had to agree with him. It would have been a lot of fun to have been cooped up in a tiny room for two days with an attractive woman but it wasn't much fun at all for two old guys.

We used to go to the Rocket Inn in Indianola for pizza about once a month, and we always enjoyed doing that because both of us love our pizza. But once a month turned into once every two months and then only a couple of times a year and I knew that Coach was on the decline because he stopped going to happy hour, too.

I've always believed that when you stop doing the things that brought so much joy to your life, you're pretty close to the end and that was true for Coach.

He died Monday, Sept. 8 th at his home in McCook. My life won't ever be the same again without him because we did things together that I probably won't ever do with anyone else.

They broke the mold when they made Coach and there won't ever be another one like him.