Chelan Story

Chelan Story, May 23rd, 2025

It was the summer of 1992. I was forty, and at the end of my prime. I was still running 8 miles a day. The knees hadn’t given out yet.

My friend, Nick, the owner and pilot of Chelan Airways, had hired me to work on his floatplanes again. I think it was an engine change on the Dehavilland Beaver.

Nick flew up and down the 50+ mile Lake Chelan to places uplake from the town of Chelan.

Nick let me stay in a room in the basement of his home while I was working on his planes. It was on Columbia Street at the south end of the bridge in town. Nick and his soon to be bride, Kris, lived on the upper floor.

At Chelan Airways, Nick had a very fit and pretty secretary. She was a fitness fanatic. You could bounce a quarter off of her stomach. I liked her. She kept the Airways going.

The secretary was about 33, I’d guess. She had two boys in their teens. I heard that the father became a heroin addict. I’m not sure about that. I never met him. Drugs were rife in Chelan in the 1980s and 90s.

In any event, it was a Friday night. There was a band playing at my favorite bar in town on the main street, only a few blocks from Nick’s house.

After dinner at Nick & Kris’ house. I put on my best jeans and flannel shirt, and headed down to the bar. I asked Kris if I looked okay.

“If I weren’t with Nick, I’d give you a look.”

That made me feel good.

In the bar, I ordered a beer and saw the pretty secretary from Chelan Airways. I asked her to dance and she said, “Sure.”

We were laughing and dancing, drinking and talking, and getting along great. Then the secretary saw a good looking young man in his early twenties. She asked him to dance and that was that.

The young man was about 20 years old, had dark hair and blue eyes, and was very handsome. I didn’t blame the secretary for trading up.

I spent the night drinking beer and listening to the band. Then walked back to Nick & Kris’ house and went to bed.

…

The next day, the people of Chelan were in an emotional state. The handsome young man the secretary had been dancing with the night before was found hanging by a rope in his family’s barn. It was ruled a suicide.

Some said it was because the dead young man’s parents put too much pressure on him to take over the farm. The pretty secretary never talked to me about it, and I didn’t ask.

TJM