Tag Archives: summer

Retro RFHers’ Great Summer Adventure

RFHers on a 1970s summer jaunt to Great Adventure
Photo/Marc Edelman

A reprise in honor of these summer days and close encounters among RFH friends … 

When summer hits in the Rumson-Fair Haven area, teens tend to flock to the Sea Bright beach clubs … the river … the public beach (yes) … Donovan’s … or they hit the road and set out for a great adventure, albeit a sweaty one on some long lines to a big ride, a log flume, a dip in a crowded wading pool or something else that veers away, like a preppy style train wreck, from the R-FH area summer norm.

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Retro Rumson Summer Scorcher Coolness

Summer sunning in Rumson with the Slocum family. Photo/courtesy of Jo Ann Slocum Mazzucca
Summer sunning in Rumson with the Slocum family.
Photo/courtesy of Jo Ann Slocum Mazzucca

Back in the day, Rumson summers weren’t all about going to the beach club from dawn ’til dusk.

For some, it was as simple skipping the packing up of the family, not to mention the cost, and just laying a blanket out on the lawn and catching some rays while the kids played.

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Simple Summer: Guarding a Sea Bright Dawn with a Friend

On Monday morning, I’m going away with my friend …

It may have been a Saturday in the Sandpipers’ famed song Come Saturday Morning, but it sure looks like this Monday captured at Sea Bright’s sunrise today by longtime Fair Havenite and Knollwood School teacher, Andy Dougherty.

When morning has broken on a final summer’s day, nothing compares to the serene veracity of the moment, especially when shared with a childhood friend.

The softness of the vivid colors, the loud silence, the magic in the clouds’ formations, the whole world inside each droplet of a wave’s crash. The hush frozen in time in a minute’s worth of snapshots.

The simplest of moments atop a lifeguard stand with a best friend. Saturday or Monday, the awakening calm of the dawn, the moment remains, many of them …

“Just I and my friend. We’ll travel for miles in our Saturday smiles. And then we’ll move on. But we will remember … long after Saturday’s gone.”

The simplest of summers. Remember the moments. Savor them. Exhale with a smile.

Retro RFHers’ Sizzling Cool Great Adventure

A summer day at Great Adventure with RFHers of the late 1970s/early ’80s.
Photo/Marc Edelman

Retro Pic of the Day reprise of an early 80s hot summer day trip adventure, because everyone needs a little coolness in their lives right now ...

The scorching summer heat lately has made taking a flying leap into a fountain, or any body of water, a goal to which many aspire — and attain as the need to cool down beckons.

In fact, summer days, for RFHers, weren’t always all about beach clubbing it and keeping cool, fun times local.

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Retro RFH BFFS’ Summer Ride

RFH girls’ ride into the summer of ’78 … Stephanie DeSesa, Elaine Van Develde, Debbie Humbert and Daryl Cooper Ley
Photo/Elaine Van Develde

There’s nothing quite like a summer drive in a classic car with the top down. So, we’re re-running this piece just because the sun needs to shine on friendships and good times like these. There’s nothing quite as warm. Put the top down and take a drive back with us again … 

The drive is all the better if it’s made with best friends. So, as a continuing ode to summer fun of the past at the hands of RFH teens, the Retro Pic of the Day encapsulates the whole idea — best friends, a cool ride and warm memories.

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Retro Rumson Dock Summer Daze

Sunning with the Oceanic Bridge as a backdrop
Photo/courtesy of Jo Ann Slocum Mazzucca

Summer has officially arrived.

The living may not be quite so easy this summer, but there has been some freedom from pandemic quarantine to ease those isolation blues. And when there’s a chance to enjoy a sunny summer day by the river, all Rumson-Fair Haven area folks tend to flock right to it.

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Retro Bathing Beauty Firecrackers

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!”

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Retro RFH Grads’ Dive into Summer

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.

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Simple Summer’s End: Beaching it with a Retired Knollwood Teacher & Friend

Jenifer Weber-Zeller and retired Knollwood School teacher, Pat Egan, enjoy a summer moment together.
Photo/Jenifer Weber-Zeller

It’s pretty simple. The sun is out. The beach is beckoning. Old friends of different generations decide to take it all in together.

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Focus: Rumson Respite; Sunny Summer Daze

Well, if a sunny Friday morning on the Shrewsbury River is any indication of what’s to come over this Fourth of July weekend, it’s all about celebrating some sunny days along with the birth of our nation.

From the Sea Bright side, overlooking the West Park section of Rumson and Gunning Island this morning, skies were blue and clear as the NJ State Marine Police patrolled the Shrewsbury and boaters boated.

According to the National Weather Service, the only exception to the good weekend weather case may be Saturday, as forecasters forecast some heavy rain and a bit of stormy weather. But, as for the rest of the holiday time, all’s sunny.

Happy Independence Day weekend, all! Enjoy and stay safe!

— Elaine Van Develde