Salvaging Si View: Residents claim scraps of ?community center in salvage day

Published 12:39 pm Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Untouched by the current remodel of the Si View Community Center, the Si View Pool was a big reason that people came to the salvage day last Thursday.

Paul Klacsan, victoriously holding up his big find — “an original outside board!”— said he swam a lot of laps in the pool as a child.

“I lived right over there,” he pointed across the field to what is now an apartment complex. “Si View was my back yard.”

Bob Widrig, also of North Bend, remembered taking swimming lessons 50 years ago, from teacher Sharon Posey who became a good friend. She’s ill now, and “she would love to have anything from here,” said Widrig’s partner, Tammy.

“I’m going to try to make something for her with this,” said Widrig, loading a stack of fir wall panels and a door into his truck. “I’m going to get creative… I’ll do anything I can for Sharon.”

People had lots of reasons for coming to the give-away and sorting through the last scraps of wood paneling, timbers, display cases and other remnants not re-used in the interior remodel of the 77-year-old building. Most were sentimental.

“I just sort of wanted to get a last piece,” said Christine Anderson of Fall City, as she counted her stack of boards, 10 to a customer.  “My kids have done camps here, and we’ve spent a lot of time here.”

Truth be told, though, Anderson also had practical reasons for coming to the salvage day.

“I have lots of projects,” she said, “it’s just getting them done. My husband’s last words to me were, ‘Don’t come home with too much stuff.’”

Tim Noonan of North Bend said he planned to build a shelter for his beehives from the lumber he picked up.

Si View Program Coordinator Minna Rudd said she heard from a woman who envisioned a sewing cabinet from one of the display cases.

Eyeing the small but patient line of customers waiting their turn for a piece of the community center, she said, “I’m just excited that there’s interest.”

Mary McManus may have been the most enthusiastic, though. After she’d loaded a solid five-panel door into her station wagon, Si View maintenance workers Emily Ferree and Jordan Jolley asked if she needed help with another one.

“I can have two?!” she asked, then did a double fist-pump in celebration.

“I’ve been looking for five-panel doors for a while,” she said.

Examining the dusty, aging finish on one, she told Rudd “I like that these have that crackle on them, that’s kind of cool.”

There were lots of great project ideas and inspiration, too. When she first arrived, Klacsan’s wife, Theresa said, “It’s too bad we didn’t have a project in mind.” Within 10 minutes, she had her project, a series of photos of their children at swimming lessons, to be mounted on that exterior board.

As she described how she would do it, she shrugged off the question of how crafty she was.

“You have to be, living with him,” she laughed.

Creative engineering was also applied to how people carried off their treasures, so much so that Rudd compared it to the parking garage at Ikea. Some, like friends Lindsay Seubert and Jessica Banashak and their six children, didn’t come exactly prepared for hauling a load.

“We weren’t sure what we were going to see,” said Seubert, directing the children to the playground, while Banashak collected a few boards and puzzled out how to load them into her minivan.

In the end, boards were stacked on ski racks and in truck beds, doors and trophy cases slid into station wagons, and Banashak maneuvered her salvage finds into a secure-enough position for the short drive ahead.

As Jolley, ever ready with a joke, tied safety tape to the end of the board protruding from the back of the van, he cautioned Banashak to drive slowly, because, “inertia is real.” That drew a few groans from his co-workers, to which he answered, “It’s inertia, it’s a real thing. Look it up.”

Rudd sighed, and said, “We’re all about lifelong learning here.”

Si View Community Center’s remodel is on track to be completed soon, well in time for its summer programs. To learn more, visit www.siviewpark.org.

Mary McManus wipes dust off a door to get a look at the crackled finish. She has been collecting five-panel doors for a big project, and she found just what she needed at the salvage day.

Theresa and Paul Klacsan of North Bend found a section of the original exterior. How do they know it’s original? ‘Because that’s what it looked like!’

Michelle Anderson of Fall City, right, gets help from Si View maintenance worker Jordan Jolley to load a long beam into her truck.

Tim Hayes, left, hasn’t quite decided what he’s going to do with some trophy cases he found in the Si View Community Center’s salvage day, but he gets help loading them from staffer Emily Ferree.

Si View Community Center, built in 1938, was named this year to the national register of historic places.