A look, in photos, of latest area events, local everyday people and places.
The sun came out on Thursday after several cloudy, rainy days.
Down by the Navesink River in Fair Haven, the scene was a serene one in the early evening.
It’s a familiar scene that never seems to get old.
Take a look.
— Elaine Van Develde
The sun is out and it looks like it’s going to be shining for the much less humid weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
And the weekend events are the perfect complement to the weather forecast.
Friday
• Hanga Loose Fridays continue at Umberto’s. Come and “hanga loose” in the back room of the restaurant on River Road in honor of Silvio Fabbri’s memory.
Stop by any time after 7 p.m.
• And, guess what? It’s time for the first Concert at the Fair Haven Dock tonight at 7:30 p.m.
The concert tonight features The Lads and is, of course, free at the dock at the foot of Fair Haven Road on the Navesink.
See you there!
• For theatergoers, Shakespeare in the park at Brookdale opens tonight.
Curtain (or something like that) for Titus Andronicus is 7 p.m. on the Great Lawn of Brookdale Community College’s campus in the Lincroft section of Middletown. Head to Parking Lot 2 and bring chairs.
For more information, call 732-224-2411.
• Phoenix Productions’ summer musical Mary Poppins is playing the weekend starting with a curtain at 8 p.m. tonight at the Count Basie Theatre.
Call 732-842-9000 for more information.
Saturday
• St. George’s-by-the-River Episcopal Church in Rumson is holding services on the beach on Saturdays for the summer.
The services will be held at 5:30 p.m. at Ancorage beach in Sea Bright, right over the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge (to the left coming from the Rumson direction).
Call 732-842-0596 for more information.
• Titus Andronicus curtain is 7 p.m. on the Great Lawn at Brookdale. See above post for more information.
• Curtain for Phoenix Productions’ Mary Poppins is 7 p.m. See above for more information.
Sunday
• Don’t forget the Red Bank Farmers Market at the Galleria parking lot from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lots of organic produce, baked goods, coffee, crafts and more.
• It’s car show season and the Red Bank firefighters from Liberty Hose are hosting their annual classic car show in the White Street parking lot from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Matinee curtain for Phoenix Productions’ Mary Poppins at the Count Basie Theatre is 3 p.m.
They call him the Ironman Cowboy. He’s the triathlete named James Lawrence who is going for a record of 50 distances in 50 states in 50 days.
Independence Day marks the 29th day of the Utah man’s quest. He’s already a Guiness World
He was on Sandy Hook. He was in Fair Haven at about 10:45 a.m. and he’ll be wrapping things up on his Jersey tour with a 5K run in Sea Bright at 7 p.m.
Fair Haven Mayor Ben Lucarelli caught up with him today. Check out the photo above.
It’s the Fourth of July weekend and patriotism is in the air.
Flags are flying and the red, white and blue color theme is abundant. The same held true as people banded together in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
Flags few amid a lot of wreckage.
Here’s one of them in our Retro Pic of the Day.
Remember this scene in downtown Sea Bright?
With all this talk about the little tykes transitioning from third to fourth grade, school being out for summer and, well, of course, graduation, there’s one milestone that’s been left out — kindergarten.
Back in the day — OK, waaaaay back in the day — there was a third school in Fair Haven for kindergarten. It was the Youth Center. People now know it better as the Fair Haven Police Station and by its newly adopted name that hasn’t quite caught on yet, and may never for us “older” folks still in town — Fair Haven Community Center. Phooey to that. Some things just need to keep a name for nostalgic purposes alone.
Continue reading Retro Fair Haven Kindergarten: The Kids and the Classroom
Former Fair Haven Mayor Michael Halfacre has a new job; and, there’s nothing controversial about the fact that he resigned from an appointed, high profile state position before signing on to the private sector post, he told Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect a couple of weeks ago at Fair Haven Day.
Halfacre announced he would be bowing out as director of the NJ Division of Acoholic Beverage Control (ABC) in the state Attorney General’s Office not too long before making the announcement that he had joined Genova Burns LLC law firm as a member of its Commercial Real Estate & Redevelopment and Business Law & Commercial Transactions Practice Groups effective today, July 1, a release from Genova Burns said. He will also be available for consultation to the firm’s Craft Beer, Spirits & Alcohol Law Practice Group, a new branch of the firm, it added.
The Gov. Chris Christie administration-appointed public sector job with the ABC, the lifelong Fair Havenite added, was an opportunity to serve the public that he was honored to have had. He just made a decision to move on, he said, nothing more. “It’s all good,” Halfacre said casually on the subject, before revealing his next career move.
Of his new job, he said in a released statement that he was “honored to join this prestigious law firm. I was basically a small-town attorney before joining the Attorney General’s Office (under which the ABC is run) as head of the ABC, and I am thrilled to join a firm with the prestige and regional presence of Genova Burns.”
Halfacre stepped as mayor of Fair Haven in his second term to accept the ABC appointment. He had been mayor since 2006. Prior to the ABC position, he worked ion the private sector as a commercial real estate attorney specializing in transactions, including sales and refinance of commercial real estate and transfers of ABC licenses, the release said.
“Michael’s experience running the ABC these past three years makes him an excellent choice to offer counsel to the firm’s newly formed Craft Beer, Spirits & Alcohol Law practice group,” said Managing Partner Brian W. Kronick. “Genova Burns occupies a niche at the nexus of business, law and government. Michael’s background, experience and knowledge of top business people around the state is a perfect fit.”
It’s a relatively new tradition for RFH to have its graduation at Monmouth University.
The venue is large. It’s where many of the high schools with larger graduating classes, by sheer virtue of population, have held graduations — mostly out of a need for more room. Middletown, which has two large public high schools, has held its graduations at Monmouth. And, before that, the PNC Bank Arts Center amphitheater in Holmdel. And some high schools have their graduations at Brookdale.
It’s been just a little more than a week since the students of Rumson and Fair Haven’s middle schools, Knollwood and Forrestdale, took their graduation walks in more ways than one.
From the traditional walk from Knollwood to Sickles School, symbolizing the end of an era and many milestones made, to lining the halls of their new high school, the middle school students marked a time for moving on to their teen years in high school.
It’s a symbolic time. One that those who grow up in the area tend to never forget — well, unless wish you’d forget it, because you wore a really ugly yellow dress and your hair was particularly frizzy that night. Ahem. I digress.
The walk, either way, either to Pomp and Circumstance, down Third Street in Fair Haven, through the halls of RFH or all, it’s a walk toward the future.
Good luck to the Knollwood and Forrestdale grads! Embrace the future with passion and purpose!
Check out our Retro Pic of the Day slideshow capturing some of those moments. Thanks to the following parents for the photos: Paige McCann, Erin, Elizabeth Sullivan, LuAnn Hughes, Doug Borden and Madelyne Valko.
Well, the weather forecast for the weekend is not looking so great.
The National Weather Service, as of now, says there’s a 100 percent chance of rain on Saturday in the area.
So, that in mind, here are some fun indoor times for the weekend …
Continue reading The R-FH Area Weekend: St. Mary’s Fair, ‘Mame’ & More
Sunday was Father’s Day.
And, we at Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect are of the mind that the day was really about much more than flipping a burger and patting a good ol’ dad on the back.
It’s bigger than that. It goes way beyond your own dad’s back yard and a grilling or two.
Growing up in a small-town niche like the Rumson-Fair Haven area carries with it that family tie feeling. Some of us were fortunate enough to have great dads. Some not.
But, what we all somehow did and still do have is a strong kinship to the dads of our towns. Even if we just recall a look, a bellowing chide or a chuckle over some stupid kid thing we did, we remember the dads with whom we grew up.
So many of these men were volunteers we saw all over town, characters whose nuances or sayings we remember, or that one poor patient guy who ended up being the poor soul to pick us up when we were stupid enough to get caught hurling eggs and toilet paper on Mischief Night — or something equally as stupid.
Yes, we do and should memorialize our own dads. Believe me, I, for one, am still looking for that money tree my dad told me was in the back yard and that gal named Dumb Dori whom he said I emulated when lacking “street smarts” to a ridiculous degree.
Yet, I also vividly remember the calm, “I’m going to kill those idiots” smile on my friend Stephanie’s dad when he picked us up at the police station after following through on a really dumb dare. Then there was the “To tell you the truth, my friend, I don’t know” quote that consistently came out of Daryl’s dad’s mouth as he shook his head in wonderment over our mangled teen logic.
There were those dads for all of us — each leaving his own patriarchal imprint in our juvenile minds. For them we are grateful — for raising us here, for coming together to protect and nurture us and for offering a communal scolding or 100, for loving all their village’s children.
They were part of this community’s foundation — everyone’s founding fathers.
Our Retro Pic (or video) of the Day honors the area’s dads for those reasons and so many more. We don’t have nearly enough photos to encapsulate all the love and all of the dads, but this is a sufficient sampling to get the message across.
— Photos/courtesy of Rumson, Fair Haven family members via Facebook
By Elaine Van Develde
He was known as the patriarch, and perhaps patron saint, of schools in Fair Haven.
He was steadying, calm, encouraging influence — never pushed by politics, never mired by mass red tape, always out for the students’ benefit.
A perpetually sage, serene smile set on his face, Robert Chartier, for many years, stood in front of Knollwood School welcoming his village full of students every single day, watching them learn and grow — fixated on seeing to it that they flourish.
He was always present, always available, always receptive. Under his leadership, students, always seen as unique individuals, soared to hit their full potential. They were all his kids. That’s simply how he saw it.
You could say that, over the years, Robert Chartier was proud papa to thousands. It was that simple to him. As principal for a stint at Willow Street School (now Sickles), then longtime principal of Knollwood and finally superintendent of Fair Haven schools, he retired many years ago, but he is still around. And the lessons learned from this iconic administrator are not forgotten.
Friends of the former top schools administrator’s son, Michael, were thrilled to see the above Father’s Day throwback photo of a young Mr. Chartier and his son.
And, since he is still so fondly recalled as that father figure by former Fair Haven students, many of whom are now parents in the borough, the photo is our Retro Pic of the Day.
Thank you, Mr. Chartier, for being a great dad of education to so many!
Share your memories of Mr. Chartier with us.
Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect will feature an interview with the iconic leader of Fair Haven schools in the future.
Lifelong Sea Bright resident, fireman and first aid volunteer Lester Johnson is being mourned Monday morning.
Services for the well-known and liked 87-year-old, who died on June 19 at Care One at King James in Middletown, will start at 10 a.m. at Flock Funeral Home, 243 Broadway, Long Branch. The firemen’s service is set for noon.
In addition to being a 67-year member of both the Sea Bright Fire Department and First Aid, Lester was longtime stock manager for the Acme stores in both Fair Haven and the Lincroft section of Middletown, according to his obituary on legacy.com. He also worked at Gardella’s in Sea Bright.
Valedictorian of the Long Branch High School Class of 1946, Lester was a veteran of the U.S. Army, having served in the Korean War, it added.
He loved trains and the stock market.
Lester was predeceased by: his parents, Lester and Marion Johnson; his grandparents, Stephen and Elizabeth Johnson; a sister, Jackie Timmons; his aunt and uncle, Alice and Jack Weir.
Surviving are: his brother, Kenneth “Tom” Johnson and his wife Lize; sister, Barbara Waters and her husband John; nieces, Sharon, Nancy, Terri, Khristi, and Leslie; nephews, Jay, Tom, Robert, Thomas and Kenny.
Donations may be made to the Sea Bright First Aid.
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