At the North Ridge Swim Club in Shoreline, a man is drowning.
As onlookers watch, club members drag his limp body into the pool house.
“And then,” recalled Janet Porta, “he comes out, dressed in different clothes, and starts to ask everyone if they know who killed him.”
The murder mystery night was just one of the community events hosted by the North Ridge Swim Club over its 50 years. Porta, who has been a member since 1979, remembers summers of water aerobics, playing with her children and an “absolutely phenomenal” karaoke party over her 30 years with the club.
And the next event will certainly be something to celebrate. On Saturday, the swim club will hold an anniversary party to mark the 50 years it’s been operating in the community. Over 200 former and current members are slated to attend.
The North Ridge Swim Club is a nonprofit volunteer organization that has been a gathering place for the community since its inception in 1959. The heated outdoor pool operates on membership fees ($350 per family, per summer) and fundraisers.
George Wiseman moved into the neighborhood in January 1959. He soon volunteered as one of the original builders of the pool and was an early member. “There were 30 original members (who started the club),” he said. “We were number 32.”
“It was a struggling, family-oriented pool,” Wiseman said. “I had four young children, and they spent all their time up there until they got into high school. It was a family thing, since parents had to watch their kids when the lifeguard wasn’t around.”
Porta, who is Wiseman’s neighbor, also remembers the pool for its emphasis on family — the reason she’s still a member today.
“It was a community thing. I had three young girls and was a single parent, and it was something for us to enjoy,” she said. Though her daughters have now moved out of the neighborhood, she continues to enjoy the pool with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren when they come to visit.
Four generations of Porta’s family will be attending the club’s 50th anniversary event, a testament to the pool’s impact.
“The pool really keeps our community connected,” said Wes Brandon, Swim Club president for the last seven years. “It’s a place where kids grow up in the summers together, spend time with families, eating and potlucking at the pool.”
Brandon sees the club as one gathering place in a city that needs more. “Shoreline needs to create community centers,” he said.
As for the Swim Club, Brandon recalls members building community around dessert auctions that pitted neighbor against neighbor, salmon bakes and pig roasts, and, two years ago, a chilly New Year’s Eve polar bear swim where “everyone takes their clothes off and jumps in.”
“It’s pretty amazing what a small community can do when everyone puts their mind to it,” Brandon said. “There just aren’t a lot of places like that anymore.”
Many changes have taken place over the club’s 50 years. According to Brandon, membership used to be more closed; now, “just about anyone” can join.
New health and safety laws have required constant expensive upgrades — such as a $1,000 alarm system that had to be replaced by a $3,000 alarm system only a short while later.
Due to safety codes, a plastic water slide replaced the diving board on which Porta’s daughters used to spend hours playing.
But for half a century, the emphasis on community and family has remained constant.
And, Porta concluded, “We’ve never had a drowning or anything.”
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