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The season for the McCook Aquatic Center comes to an end Wednesday, Aug. 13. The outdoor
facility is wrapping up its first full season after opening in July 2024. For more than 80 years, the
original McCook pool operated in the same location until it was replaced with a modern pool.
One constant at the old pool and now the new pool is a maroon van parked nearby with Bill
Donze sitting inside and a sign outside promoting 25-cent snow cones. Most people know him
simply as Mr. Bill.
Whether you think he is crazy for sitting in a vehicle registering 120-degrees on the interior or
odd for selling candy to kids by the side of the road, Mr. Bill is the constant every summer.
But those summers with Mr. Bill peddling Little Debbies and Slim Jims through the open van
doors is coming to an end.
For those who don’t know, Mr. Bill has cancer and faces a grim prognosis. He is very open
about the fact that his chances of being around next summer are slim. He is fighting the disease
with all the modern methods and says that when those options run out, he’ll consider all the
alternatives. But even if, as he puts it, he can find something on the internet to help him, there is
only a small chance he’ll be around to serve snow-cones to kids next summer.
Everyone has a Mr. Bill story.
One of my favorites involves Mr. Bill parking his van alongside Norris Park when the pool wasn’t
open. My mother-in-law lived across from Norris Park at the time and backed into Mr. Bill’s van.
As Dolores was going slow, it caused just a small dent but she wanted to pay to have it
repaired. Mr. Bill refused to have it fixed and declined to take any cash for the damage. Instead,
he would only accept the money for it to be used for free snow-cones for the kids. I believe kids
didn’t have to scrounge quarters for a snow-cone all summer long.
Just this week, I got to introduce someone new to Mr. Bill. I was talking with a friend at the
McCook pool, who was visiting from North Platte. In town for a meeting, she and her kids vowed
to do “McCook” things like lunch at Citta Deli, a donut from Ember’s, walk past the Frank Lloyd
Wright-designed Sutton House and swim at the new McCook pool.
I pointed at the maroon-colored van in the McCook Community College parking lot and asked if
she was stopping at Mr. Bill’s before heading north.
“Who is Mr. Bill?”
That concept seemed implausible to me but I explained that Mr. Bill sat in the searing heat,
selling candy and snow cones to the kids. I added that yes, when I explain it like that it does
sound like the very thing we tell our kids not to do. But in McCook and with Mr. Bill, it’s a right of
passage and the essence of summer.
I added that I hoped she had a stash of quarters in her mini-van and wasn’t against processed
food but it was something she needed to do before leaving town.
And the timing was especially important as the chances to visit with Mr. Bill are very limited, with
a McCook tradition coming to an end.
This doesn’t just apply to Mr. Bill.
We all have a limited time on this Earth. If we wait until the perfect moment to do something, or
the best time to visit with someone or only when we have time to reach out to someone, we may
miss our opportunity.
When my father-in-law Pete Graff was nearing the end, I asked my own dad to go visit him with
me. My dad’s response was that he would wait until Pete felt better. Of which I responded that
there wasn’t going to be a better time. We visited on a Monday and Pete passed away later that
week. There is never a perfect time. There is only now.
That opportunity existed because we knew time was short. And the same is true with Mr. Bill.
But we don’t have to know someone is dying to reach out or make a connection. We don’t have
to be on our death-bed to try something new or reach for a far-off dream. Again, there is no
perfect time. There is only now.
Mr. Bill plans to operate his candy van up until the end, as long as he is able. He could be sitting
in the unforgiving heat next summer if his body allows it, but this may be the last time our kids
get to experience the “25-cent snow cones since 1982.”
Mr. Bill and his candy van is one of those things that makes McCook unique and if you have the
chance, stop by his van, just to say “hi.” To say we appreciate you watching out for our kids. To
say thank you for making McCook a place where it is O.K. for our kids to buy candy from a guy
sitting in a van in a parking lot. And do it today because there is no perfect time…there is only
now.
