It’s half past pandemic graduation time. The RFH Class of 2020 had its drive-by celebration last night. A virtual ceremony is to come and still more.
Continue reading Retro RFH Grad MomentsImages
Retro RFH ‘Pomp & Circumstance’ Street Walk
The last time capped and gowned RFH grads were lining the street was more than four decades ago when the Class of ’78 graduated on the front lawn of the high school.
Continue reading Retro RFH ‘Pomp & Circumstance’ Street WalkRetro Fair Haven Day with Iconic Fair Havenites
Saturday was a tough day for Fair Havenites longing to keep tradition going, but flogged by a pandemic. It would have been the eighth actual Fair Haven Day on Saturday. The day that started it the annual Fair Haven Day tradition was the Fair Haven Centennial Celebration in 2012.
Continue reading Retro Fair Haven Day with Iconic Fair HavenitesRetro Eighth Grade Class Tripping
Photos/Jeanne Murphy Wnorowski
A reprise Retro Pic(s) of the Day from the Knollwood School Class of ’74 to the Class of 2020 …
There’s nothing quite like a final class trip — with class clowns, friends, foes and teachers. Yes, teachers. It was a tradition for Fair Haven schools back in the 1970s. And we’re not talking Stokes.
Of course, that wouldn’t be the last for Knollwood schoolers. We’re talking a final group trip. The last leisurely day trip disguised as a class trip. They had those back then.
This particular trip was taken in 1974 to a dude ranch somewhere with Fair Haven’s Knollwood School soon-to-be grads and teachers. Where? None of the old folks in the pictures can remember. Hey, some of us don’t even remember the trip. We know there were horses, perhaps some riding and some swimming. And, apparently, there was lots of lounging and sunning. Hmmmmm …
Continue reading Retro Eighth Grade Class TrippingRetro Forever Fair Haven Eighth Grade Friendship Snapshot
Photo/Sally Van Develde
Eighth graders in the Rumson-Fair Haven area are going through graduation rites of passage of a different kind right now — the COVID-19 pandemic era kind.
And what’s different about it is that there are no photos of friends clustered together, arms wrapped around one another or stiff shoulder-to-shoulder stances, signaling the end of a grade school era and beginnings. It’s definitely a missed moment or several this year.
Those ends and beginnings always involve childhood friends, some who stay with us throughout each milestone in our lives. They’re always there, if not in physical presence, in our hearts and on our minds. Those friends were markers in the milestones that are rooted in all that’s home. Our history.
So, while those friendship poses won’t be struck in the isolated pandemic Class of 2020 photos, the kinships inherent in them remain a hallmark of homegrown, hometown life.
Even if you were one of those kids that just didn’t like school all that much, the awkward, trying and exhilarating moments marked with those childhood friends are the ones that stay forever etched in minds and hearts. It’s the stuff that makes you who you are. The stuff that keeps you grounded, or up in the air — always home.
Those questionable fashion pics and fumbling adolescent moments also comprise great friendship blackmail material. Who else would have such epic fashion failure photos to go along with a string of clumsy, trouble-making memories up for grabs?
Your oldest friends. That’s who. And when the time comes to say your final goodbye, a standard eulogy by the most stable adult in the bunch just can’t compete with the memories of childhood, adolescence, teen years and adulthood and all of its ugliness, awkwardness and beauty with best friends.
Crews of grade school cronies, regardless of fashion or common sense, have something special — dating back to the beginning of graduating times.
Continue reading Retro Forever Fair Haven Eighth Grade Friendship SnapshotRetro Eighth Grade Grad Close Encounter
Photo/Elaine Van Develde
The Fair Haven Knollwood School grads have always been a styling, close-knit crew — a crew of cohorts that’s always shared many Kodak moments, in pairs, trios, cliques and all together.
Just as photography has evolved from Brownie camera to Instamatic to Polaroid, to phone camera, to full-on professional photo shoots, graduation photo ops have devolved back to single inspired family front lawn shots. That’s where the photo blitz usually began. Now it’s where it ends, too. So, some things never really change — much.
Read moreRetro Fair Haven 8th Grade Grads
Photo/courtesy of Jane Croft
It’s an unprecedented graduation time in Rumson and Fair Haven this year. These pandemic days, in Fair Haven, eighth grade students are being met with a diploma, Superintendent Sean McNeil, Knollwood School Principal Amy Romano and a mini front-yard graduation snapshot in time and ceremony. It started this week.
While eighth grade graduations have taken place in various venues over the years, from what was Willow Street School (now Viola L. Sickles School) to Knollwood and then to Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, there’s never yet been a front lawn march to Pomp and Circumstance. Yet, this year’s comes close.
So, in honor of the eighth grade students graduating Knollwood School’s Class of 2020, we take a look back in a reprise of an eighth grade graduation post from June 18, 2018, featuring the Class of 1946.
Retro Happy RFH Campers
Photo/George Day
Since NJ Gov. Phil Murphy sanctioned camping again in the state, there have been some, well, happy campers.
Continue reading Retro Happy RFH CampersRetro Stoked Stokes Trippers
Photos/(left to right) Angela Carpenter, Doug Borden, Peter Mauger, Lisa Ericson
Every year, for more than half a century, Fair Haven sixth graders get stoked to go to Stokes State Forrest for a week of cabin camping and outdoor schooling and socializing. It’s a tradition.
And for the first time in more than half a century, the tradition has been broken due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today would have been the day that the happy little campers came home from their post-Memorial Day week of adventure with classmates, teachers and parents.
So, we take a look back at some Stokes moments of bunking, hiking, pranking, do-se-doing your partner and all-around exploring back in the 70s, from youngsters to those high school counselors. Remember those?
There were RFH seniors chosen to be counselors, dubbed CATS. Each couple of CATs was assigned to teach/counsel sixth graders in their area of expertise. There were bug experts, hiking troopers, rowing aficionados, swimmers, and story tellers, dancers, singers and guitar players.
There was a square dancing night. And there was plenty of practice that ensued before it. What square dancing song stands out in your memory? And how about those campfire nights? Song always sung? How about the traditional story told? Who got lost in the woods with the compass/pathfinders class? Who was a CAT?
- In Memoriam: Longtime Rumsonite, RFH Grad, First Aid Squad Volunteer, Mary DeVito Nichols, 80
- Scene Around: RFH Stage Mom Standing Ovation
- Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge Travel Advisory
- In Memoriam: Red Bank Native, Little Silver Resident and Fire Department Member, Pete Gale, 77
- Prosecutor: Human Remains Unearthed at Construction Site; ‘No Foul Play’
Retro RFH Rite of Passage: Close Donovan’s Encounters
Photos/Lisa Mazurek D’Amato
Close encounters at an iconic RFH alum hang-out may be a thing of the past these days, but old memories of Donovan’s Reef times die hard. So do close RFH classmate relationships.
Continue reading Retro RFH Rite of Passage: Close Donovan’s EncountersRetro Theatrical RFHers’ Day at the Beach
Photo/courtesy of Rossi
It’s the start of a Memorial Day weekend of a different kind — the pandemic kind.
Continue reading Retro Theatrical RFHers’ Day at the BeachRetro Rumson First Aid by Boat
Photo/Rumson First Aid Squad archives
As part of National EMS Week, homage is paid to first aid squads, particularly the volunteer squads.
Continue reading Retro Rumson First Aid by Boat
You must be logged in to post a comment.