Images

Retro RFH Halloween Parading

RFH ghouls, or something like that, on parade in 1977
Photo/George Day

Well, scary season is upon us. I’m not talking about politics, I’m talking about Halloween.

RFHers have been celebrating Halloween for decades. It’s a tradition.

Today was the RFH Halloween parade, which is in the halls, on the grounds and sometimes spilling elsewhere.

So, the Retro Pic of the (George) Day honors the RFH Halloween parade with a look back on one in the 1970s.

Recognize any of these guys and ghouls?

Thanks to George Day for this haunting look back at Halloween RFH style! 

Retro Remembrance: Rumson Jersey Girl Kit Rowett

She might have hated all this attention. Then again, maybe not. It’s a pretty sure bet that it would have at least cracked a smile on her face, perhaps followed by an eye roll and a wise crack. Sister Chris told me that during the end of her battle with cancer, Kit Rowett (White) was enjoying reconnecting with friends on Facebook and remembering good times with old friends and family.

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Retro RFH Hunt Party Starters II

RFHers get supplies to the tailgates at The Hunt in the late 1970s or early 80s
Photo/RFH reunion slideshow screenshot

So, at last retro view of The Hunt, RFHers were making their way onto the grounds of the Amory Haskell estate in the late 1970s or early 80s with lots supplies and spirit (or spirits) in tow.

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A Retro Look at RFH Cheerleaders

Photo/RFH yearbook screenshot
Photo/RFH yearbook screenshot

In the interest of giving equal time to the Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) girls of the football season, the Retro Pic of the Day zooms in on the cheerleaders of the past.

This above photo features the varsity cheerleaders of RFH in 1975-76.

Notice how the captains of the squad’s letters are RF only and they’re in white. Hmmm.

And then there were those catchy cheers with all that stomping, pom-pomming, clapping and megaphones. Aaaaaand “Hey, purple! Hey white! You look so good to meeeeee … Hey, hey, hey purple, hey white …” Who remembers one? Don’t be shy now!

Recognize these girls?

What do you miss about the role of the cheerleader in the past versus the present? What do you like better now about the cheering squads and what is now a dance team?

Retro Going to The Hunt

The Hunt in the 1990s
Photo/courtesy of Hetty Tegen

The Hunt. The Hunt. It was the annual October social gathering of the century in Monmouth County — from 1932 until 1996.

The Hunt, really the Haskell Hunt or Monmouth County Hunt Race Meet. It was where all good Rumson-Fair Haven area hob-knobbers, uppercrusters and hill voyeurs of the famously elite lifestyle gathered on the Amory Haskell Estate in Middletown, pretended to watch horses race and chase a fox, clinked crystal champagne flutes, donned designer duds, and sometimes did a little tipsy debutante tumble in the mud — all in good company. And there were many cheers to the festivity of it all!

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Retro RFH Cheering for the Boys

The role reversed cheerleaders of RFH Powder Puff Football 1977. Photo/RFH yearbook screenshot

Let’s cheer it for the RFH boys of 1977! They were game for pretty much anything.

The moment doesn’t get much more classic than this one — some young guys of the RFH Class of ’78 getting all dressed up with somewhere to go, like the RFH football field, just to cheer the girls on in style at a powder puff football game with some feminine wile, gusto and guts to boot!

Yes, you’ve seen this collection of Retro Pic of the (George) Day snapshots of that day in the fall of 1977.

So, just to cheer you on with a smile for the weekend, here they are again.

Hip, hip, holy cartwheel! Gooooooo RFH guys! One question. Where did they get certain under garments to augment (ahem) the cheering gear? We’ve always been afraid to ask.

Recognize any of these renegades? Some are still in the area.

Thanks, once again, to George Day for providing this classic look into the past!

Retro RFH Football Boys

With the advent of the football season comes memories of old days when the RFH Band played on with more members, but many may not recall that the football team was small.

Band was big in the 1970s. But, going back more than half a century, like back to the 1930s, when RFH was Rumson High School, the football team appeared small. There was no regional. And the population was, well, small. There were sprawling estates, farms (with a lot of asparagus growing wild) and berries aplenty for picking.

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Retro Back to School of 50 Years Ago

Students were back to school in the Rumson-Fair Haven area this week. Those classic first day of school shots were plastered all over Facebook.

And 50 years ago, or 51, to be exact, in September of 1966, while 91,000 students and 4,700 teachers headed back to public school classrooms in Monmouth County (13,014 to parochial), according to a Red Bank Register story of Sept. 6, 1966, the anticipation of the photo taken with that Brownie camera mounted as that picture of the day developed — taking weeks at times.

And those photos were classics … Mom-styled hair gone awry, buck-toothed and missing tooth grins, shiny Mary Jane shoes, Buster Brown penny loafers and, well, cheesy fashion in which to pose and say, “Cheese!”

At Knollwood School in 1966, half a century ago, there was a first-grade class, headed by Mrs. Ginny Kamin (deceased Red Bank Register editor Art Kamin’s wife) and filled with some area kids who ended up becoming entrenched in the community. One of those kids was me.

Some are no longer with us. Others have moved away, but keep in touch. Others, still, have stuck around and raised their children here, too. One common thread is that none of them have forgotten their hometown and likely that walk to the first day of school so many decades ago.

For me, the memory of the badly side-combed bangs kinda sticks like the Dippity-doo that was in them. Sorry, Mom. So do those little faces that seemed to loom like the Man in the Moon back in that slightly nerve-wracked elementary school daze.  And it seems like yesterday. Yes, that’s scary. It’s especially scary since it wasn’t, in fact, yesterday.

Back in those days, we walked to school with a buddy. For me, those buddies were my best friend and neighbor Pam Young and Jeff Lang. Pam and I met up with Jeff at the corner and the three of us walked the rest of the way together. Yes, Jeff occasionally would carry my books. I remember that vividly. He is gone now, but that memory is a vivid and enduring one. So is the memory of Mrs. Lang waving to us from the front porch and reminding him to do just that.

The first day of school photos were taken on the front porch, in the front yard or on the sidewalk before the first stroll back then. There was that wait for the film development. Remember that? Then there was the wait for the annual class photo, like the one above, when the picture people grabbed a comb from a tub and gave all the kids a really bad comb through before that elementary school grimace moment. Not a good hair day for most of us little kids subject to Mom’s fashion whims.

It’s all a walk down a Fair Haven memory lane with a stumble or two for good measure.

What’s your first day memory? Stumble? Who did you walk with?

— Elaine Van Develde