PORT ALLEGANY — Just so you know, this column isn’t about sports, but since it’s my space, I’m devoting it to the passing of a friend.

One of the realities of our personal chronology is that as the years go by, we lose some of the people who have impacted our lives.

And it seems I’ve written about too many of them these past few years. Still, when I got a text that Dick Kallenborn had passed away a weekend ago, there was no way I couldn’t memorialize him in print nor miss last Friday’s wake.

WE MET in 1973 shortly after I left as WESB sports director and joined the Times Herald. But still living in Bradford, Dick’s gas station, Parkway Mobil, was close by for me and had economical fuel prices.

One day I inquired, “What’s a football-playing Grove City College biology major doing running a service station in Bradford … especially when you live 30 miles away in Port Allegany?”

As he contemplated his answer, I did a follow-up.

“And why is it Parkway Mobil, you’re on the corner of West Washington and Center streets and it’s another block to Interstate Parkway?”

This time he had an answer: “Because I like being called ‘Parkway Dick.’”

That’s the nickname he used in his commercials on WESB.

Normally, using radio advertising for a service station isn’t a winning option, but Dick made it work. His spots were warm and friendly and resonated with an audience that soon became loyal customers.

Of course, that didn’t stop me from mimicking his catch-phrase “Now here’s the deal …” in the best imitation voice I could muster. I often reminded him the only reason I went there was his “cheap gas” but he’d raise a cautionary index finger and say, “inexpensive.”

We became fast friends, both having graduated from college in 1967 and were separated by only five weeks in age. Dick died a month short of his 77th birthday.

What I liked most about him was his intelligence and fantastic sense of humor, sometimes at my expense.

One day we were at the station and saw a scruffy old fellow walking up the street. “Check out that guy,’ Dick said, “he looks homeless but is probably one of those people with a thousand-dollar bill in his pocket.”

“Yeah right,” I said, “10 bucks says he doesn’t.”

The man walked into the shop and Dick asked, “Say, you don’t happen to have a $1,000 bill on you?”

Dutifully, the smiling man pulled out a decrepit wallet and produced that very denomination which was in mint form.

I was so mortified Dick had snookered me, I handed him $10 and left.

Later he admitted, “I knew he had that bill. They stopped printing them five years ago, so he just kept his.” He handed back my money … and I took it.

BUT DICK’S best ruse was reserved for my successor at WESB, Bob Appuhn.

Somehow, Bob had managed to lose his wedding ring down the grate atop his dashboard and he brought his car to Dick in hopes it could be retrieved.

A few hours later, Bob returned and was handed his wedding ring and a succinct bill: “$300, ring-job.” I wasn’t there for the presentation, but Dick said Bob’s face turned ashen, a combination of sticker-shock and how a seemingly minor job could cost so much. Unable to withhold his laughter, Dick finally handed Bob the real invoice, $30.

Shortly thereafter, Dick sold the station and returned to Port Allegany, to which he was fiercely loyal.

Soon he was elected mayor of his beloved hometown and that afforded me, in the rare times I saw him, to open my arms in sweeping fashion and regally announce, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the mayor of Port Allegany, Pennsylvania, Richard L. Kallenborn.”

I was never sure whether he was amused or wanted to punch me in the face.

DICK WAS a large man physically but with an even more outsized personality who commanded a room with down-home humor and a genuine caring about his constituents.

Those years at the service station showed his people skills but delayed his true calling, public service.

After his stint as mayor, he served two terms as a McKean County Commissioner and then, for years, as Port Allegany’s Borough Manager. It took over 100 words of his obituary to list all of his involvement with county and community causes.

Still, one line of his obit stuck out to me: “He passed away doing what he loved: spending time on the lake on his boat.”

Peggy, Dick’s wife of 55 years, said he had health issues and two years ago had given a son his beloved boat. But he had a change of heart upon seeing a vintage wooden Chris-Craft and despite his son’s objections — “It might not even float” — he bought it.

The test run was a week ago Saturday at Kinzua’s Wolf Run Marina. But before the launch, Dick passed out. However, by the time the ambulance arrived, he had regained consciousness, was lucid and his vital signs were stable. And even though the first responders suggested a hospital visit was in order, Dick said he was fine and sent them on their way.

Shortly thereafter he passed out again, sitting in his new boat, and couldn’t be revived.

His boys, Jim and Mike, maintain if Dick had written his own obituary, that’s the way he would have chosen to end his life’s story.

I knew Dick for 50 years and never once heard a negative word about him. By mere coincidence, my brother-in-law, Don Reed, Borough Manager of Emporium, became friends with him while attending various state events and he said Dick was always among the most respected, well-liked managers at the gatherings.

In my mind, if Dick wrote his obituary, he’d have concluded: “I’ve had a wonderful life and it owes me nothing.”

(Chuck Pollock, an Olean Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)