Some moments are meant for just lounging … like the persistent foul fall weather of the past few days. There was a place for that for juniors at RFH back in the day.
Continue reading Retro RFH Foul Weather Junior Lounging
RFHers have fallen into football season with the usual panache. Everything about playing the game has always been done in true pro style — from the players to the cheerleaders.
Though, while cheerleaders are still cheering at RFH, they do so with different outfits and cheer style. And seeing cheerleaders all dressed up like some 1977 guys on the sidelines is something that never happens (or at least like this) anymore.
A reprise in honor of girls’ soccer season at RFH …
Yes, soccer season has kicked in. And there are and have been girls teams at RFH since 1984. But, that was not always the case …
When Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect shared a photo of the boys’ team from back in the late 1970s, RFH grads challenged all to remember who the first girl was to play on the boys’ team.
Continue reading Retro RFH Girl’s Soccer
You could say that soccer season has kicked in at RFH.
Continue reading Retro RFH Soccer Boys’ Kick
An R-FH Retro reprise …
Well, all are back to school at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH), too. Back to school experiences on the brain, we look back to the new experience of high school for freshmen.
With back-to-school thoughts and new beginnings come hopes of a good teacher or two and memories of the ones who we thought were the coolest and, yes, the worst and scariest to a newbie RFHer. There were also those administrators who weren’t just a Charlie Brown teacher voice cawing rules over the ol’ daydreaming student’s non-thought process. Some, or a couple in particular, are remembered as a real education innovators.
Continue reading Retro RFH Teacher & Administrator Coolness
Lately, in the Rumson-Fair Haven area, for the students who have little to no knowledge or cares about a vote on a $15 million plus referendum, it’s been all about school pictures. They’ve been more worried about striking that pose without some missing teeth, bad hair or the wrong outfit. Then there’s the class photo. Side-by-side posing and playing around, the snapshot is a lifetime keeper. Call it a class act.
Continue reading Retro Fair Haven Fifth Grade Class Act & Reunion
Didn’t you get the memo? It’s that time of the school year when kids strike a usually awkward, but priceless pose for class pictures.
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.
Continue reading Retro RFH Football Players
School bells are ringing. Class is in session. Or half session, if it’s kindergarten. Things in that department are the same as they ever were for at least more than half a century. That’s more than a little snapshot in time.
Continue reading Retro Kindergarten Class Photo SessionSept. 11 marked the 35th anniversary of the iconic Fair Haven Whistle Stop owner Frank Leslie’s death. So, in honor of Mr. Leslie and the wonderful memories he and his wife, Barbara, gave so many Fair Haven kids, we are reprising our piece on the Leslies and their oh, so sweet after-school stop. Thank you, Frank Leslie. You are remembered. Thirty-five years? Wow.
By Elaine Van Develde
Sometimes all it takes is a jawbreaker, a slice of Elio’s frozen pizza, pinball and friends all enveloped in a gingham-curtained room with a jovial giant of a dad host to make a bunch of kids smile.
Sometimes. Some simpler time back in time.
Continue reading Retro Whistle Stop Kids’ SceneThere have been a lot of significant beginnings and endings lately. The end of summer. The beginning of locals’ summer. The start of school — new chapters and first days.
But, what about the middle? The end of the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair brings me, and probably more than a few others, back to that middle.
The following piece was originally published on Aug. 31, 2015. It is being re-run, with changes only in the amount of years that have passed, in memory of my father, Bill Van Develde, former longtime Fair Haven Fire Company member, president and captain of the Fire Police and chairman of the stock room at the fair, on the anniversary of his death on Aug. 31, 1983. RIP, Dad. You are missed. Thank you for all the embarrassing moments that I didn’t appreciate enough. Thank you for making Fair Haven my home. Thank you for being a real dad. See you later at the fair …
Photo/FHFD booklet
By Elaine Van Develde
It’s been 36 years, but I can still see his face and that kooky Brylcreemed hairdo. I can still hear his crazy belly laugh and that signature “Take ‘er easy, buddy!” I can still see him slapping kids on the back, forever clutching his trusty clipboard, pencil perched behind his ear, sweat on the brow and finger wagging.
Continue reading Remembrance of the Fair Stock Room Dude — Dad
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