Monthly Archives: October 2025

Local Life, Opinion

Reflection: Retro Halloween Parading

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The following opinion piece on Halloween through the generations in Fair Haven was originally published in 2015. It is reprised annually … 

The Fair Haven Halloween Parade passed by last weekend. Missed it! But, as always, this senior-aged (OUCH) kid from Fair Haven has some parading memories on which to reflect. Remember this scene?

It’s a longstanding tradition — the Fair Haven Halloween Parade.

I remember it well — from my first parade trek back in the late 1960s to the ’70s, 80s, 90s and now.

It all started at age 7 with a wish to be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. I’ve noticed a few in more recent years and the green-eyed jealousy monster of a near senior has reared its head. But I digress … That little dress-up fantasy of the 60s of mine was foiled when my mother couldn’t get the gingham outfit together, my pigtails were not so poised for the silver screen look and my sister refused to crawl down Hance Road as Toto.

I guess it was bad enough that from the age of 3, she was forced by this pint-sized dominatrix 5-year-old Dorothy to crawl on a makeshift Funk and Wagnall’s encyclopedia Yellow Brick Road to Oz in the living room. The neighbors never quite got over it, either.

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Obituaries

In Memoriam: Red Bank Native, Community Pillar, Charlie Doremus, 82

Charles Albert Doremus

Former longtime Red Bank resident and community pillar, Charles “Charlie” Albert Doremus, more recently of Daphne, Alabama, passed away peacefully on Oct.12 with his loving wife, Melanie Miller Doremus, by his side. He was 82.

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Local Life

Retro RFHers’ Hunt for a Hippie Good Time

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They were on the hunt for a great time filled with tradition. That was the crew of ’78 on this very day, Oct. 22, 47 years ago, on that infamous Hippie Hill on the Haskell Estate in Middletown, where The Hunt was held annually back in the day. Remember? We do.

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Police and Fire, Red Bank Police & Fire Files

Police Report: Robbery, Burglary, Drug Dealing and Manufacturing in School Zone, Theft, Assault, Terroristic Threats, Harassment, DWI, Graffiti

The following September criminal incidents and arrests were reported by Red Bank police. An arrest does not constitute a conviction.

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Local Life

Retro Halloween Classroom Classic

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Halloween in Fair Haven’s Sickles School in 1985
Photo/Kathy Robbins

It’s cool to be a ghoul in school, right?

Wait. Is that a lobster raising its claw to answer the teacher? Why, yes, it is. The teacher is unfazed. But the lesson? Well, it seems that this day in a Fair Haven 1980s classroom is all about costumes and little to nothing about reading, writing and ‘rithmetic.

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