Call them players. It’s all about keeping in step with the high school game. And the RFH Football Team played on …
So did the band. Both players of a different kind. Playing to the same tune — the game. But school spirit and team player strength doesn’t always come in numbers. With high school football season on the horizon, memories come to mind of the old days when the RFH Band played on and in step with many more field-marching members than these days. The football team the band was playing about? Not so much. There was a time when the RFH football team was small — smaller than the band that trumpeted the team.
Band was big and so was a big band era decades ago, for that matter. In fact, going back more than half a century, like back to the 1930s, when RFH was Rumson High School, the football team was minuscule by comparison. There was no regional in the high school name. And the population was, well, low. There were sprawling estates, farms (with a lot of asparagus growing wild) and berries aplenty for picking.
Happy campers at the Fair Haven campout in 2013 Photo/Elaine Van Develde
It’s been a steamy summer. One hot Fair Haven summer event was a short-lived one for this seasonal reason, because it was, let’s say, too hot to handle. That would be the summer campout. It’s been moved to the fall.
Summer is in full swing down by the river, heat waves, storms and all! And a big part of summering in the Rumson-Fair Haven area is all about hanging out down by the river — on the dock, on a little strip of sand, or sailing away with your River Rats.
Bathing beauties of a Fair Haven neighborhood in 1965 Photo/Sally Van Develde
Back in the summer of ’65 … the heat was on in Fair Haven, and some pint-sized bathing beauties were set to walk the walk, if the suit and the bathing cap fit. In the spirit of the season, call them little firecrackers. Celebrity neighborhood sparklers. Whatever the name, they were set for a good, simple backyard game. This one was easy — the suited up line-up. On cue, they struck the pose and gave a big “Cheese!”
RFHers go on an adventure to Great Adventure
Photo/courtesy of Marc Edelman, Facebook
RFHers’ adventure to Great Adventure
Photo/courtesy of Marc Edelman, Facebook
It’s officially summertime, and the livin’ is … adventurous for many RFH students. Most are known to hit the beach, clubs or public, in Sea Bright. And some look for a little adventure in venturing away from familiar, iconic turf, and onto another great Jersey adventure, so to speak.
Class of ’76 seniors dive into summer Photo/RFH Yearbook 1976
Summer is officially here and RFHers have graduated. That means that it’s a last summer hurrah for those RFH seniors, many of whom will be headed in different directions after the summer’s over. It’s another milestone time — one that almost always brings with it a treasure trove of memories that evoke forever smiles.
It’s a time when those graduated seniors who are headed off to college and life’s new path in the fall dive into that goodbye summer with gusto.
Fair Haven eighth grade graduation from Willow Street School (Sickles) circa 1946
Photo/courtesy of Jane Croft
Well, all the graduates in the Rumson-Fair Haven area have officially walked that walk.
One of those walks was the one of tradition in which Fair Haven eighth grade graduation tradition of grads take a walk back in time down Third Street from Knollwood School, where it all ended, to Viola L. Sickles School, where their Fair Haven schooling all began.
Knollwood Class of ’74 graduation fashionistas Stephanie DeSesa, Elaine Van Develde and Wanda Becker. Photo/Sally Van Develde
Eighth graders in the Rumson-Fair Haven area have graduated. They’ve walked their walks. They’ve struck their grad poses. And, they’ve dressed the part. Quite well.
Photos are popping up all over social media. And these crews of grade school cronies seem to have a panache we eighth graders of the 1970s lacked. There they all are … posing, arms wrapped around one another, sporting stylish clothes, tans and toothy grins.
Rumson police of yesteryear Photo/Rumson PD Facebook
National Police Week is coming to a close. It was kicked off with the annual Police Unity Tour culminating in Washington D.C.. Rumson Police Chief Scott Paterson rode this year.
A 1976 River Rats crew
Photo/courtesy Marc Edelman, Facebook
Call it a ratty reprise …
Summers in the Rumson-Fair Haven area are rife with river-oriented activities that have become tradition.
River Rats’ sailing “camp” is no exception. OK, nobody was camping per se. It was more like a little club. Still is. In fact, it’s that time of the year when kids start signing up for summer River Rats fun. In fact, it’s about that time to sign up for the Rats season.
It’s been a sort of rite of living on the Navesink passage for decades — since 1955. Kids learn how to boat and do a lot of summer fun bonding in the process.
In the baseball dugout with RFHers of the 1970s Photo/George Day
You may recognize at least one of these RFH boys from the baseball practice pile-up prank in our recent Retro Pic of the Day. Call it playing ball peppered with a little spring fever.
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