Category Archives: Local Life

A look, in photos, of latest area events, local everyday people and places.

Local Life

Retro Neighborhood Kids: Bathing in the Beauty of Firsts

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Bathing beauties of a Fair Haven neighborhood in 1965
Photo/Elaine Van Develde

This Retro Pic of the Day is being run again as an ode to priceless firsts with your first friend, your first real neighbor and the warmth of those times under the summer sun. It is a thank you to that neighborhood kid, the tallest of us kids, with the fancy, flouncy, skirted bathing suit, the flowery bathing cap and the chutzpah to give this Fair Haven kid many firsts with questionable veracity, but always loyalty and love.

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Local Life

Retro RFH BFFS’ Summer Ride

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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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Local Life

A Happy 98th Birthday Tribute to a Fair Haven Icon: Ray Taylor

Images of Ray Taylor
Photos/Elaine Van Develde

Fair Haven’s iconic Ray Taylor is two years shy of a centenarian today. That means he’s just about as old as his hometown. It also means that he has a cache swelling with love, memories and future plans for the place he has called home for longer than most.

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Local Life

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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Local Life

Retro RFH Grad Moments

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  • RFH graduation ’79 Photo/George Day
  • 2015 RFH graduation at Monmouth University Photo/Paige McCann
  • 2013 RFH graduation on the football field got rained out
  • RFH graduation in the 1970s Photo/George Day

It’s half past pandemic graduation time. The RFH Class of 2020 had its drive-by celebration last night. A virtual ceremony is to come and still more.

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Local Life

Retro Fair Haven Day with Iconic Fair Havenites

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  • George Giffin at the first Fair Haven Day Photo/Elaine Van Develde
  • Pat Topfer at the first Fair Haven Day Photo/Elaine Van Develde
  • Fair Haven Day 2015 with lifetime friends
    Photo/Elaine Van Develde

Saturday was a tough day for Fair Havenites longing to keep tradition going, but flogged by a pandemic. It would have been the eighth actual Fair Haven Day on Saturday. The day that started it the annual Fair Haven Day tradition was the Fair Haven Centennial Celebration in 2012.

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Local Life

Retro Eighth Grade Class Tripping

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The scene at the Knollwood School Class of 1974 class trip to the dude ranch
Photos/Jeanne Murphy Wnorowski

A reprise Retro Pic(s) of the Day from the Knollwood School Class of ’74 to the Class of 2020 …

There’s nothing quite like a final class trip — with class clowns, friends, foes and teachers. Yes, teachers. It was a tradition for Fair Haven schools back in the 1970s. And we’re not talking Stokes.

Of course, that wouldn’t be the last for Knollwood schoolers. We’re talking a final group trip. The last leisurely day trip disguised as a class trip. They had those back then.

This particular trip was taken in 1974 to a dude ranch somewhere with Fair Haven’s Knollwood School soon-to-be grads and teachers. Where? None of the old folks in the pictures can remember. Hey, some of us don’t even remember the trip. We know there were horses, perhaps some riding and some swimming. And, apparently, there was lots of lounging and sunning. Hmmmmm …

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