Mary Ann Kampfe will be back home in Fair Haven at the borough library on Thursday for a chat about and sign her book Dementia Dolls: A Daughter’s Story.
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Focus: A Fair Finish
The rides are dismantled. The chowder is sold out. The grounds are cleared. Games of chance are won and done. Town tales spun, lifetime friendships rekindled and begun. The 2019 Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair has come to a close for another year, but not before a banner finale.
Here’s a glimpse into fair closing night happenings and people on Saturday, from daylight to dark … (Don’t forget to CLICK on each photo to enlarge! Click again on same photo to advance to the next. Enjoy!)
— Elaine Van Develde
Reflection: All’s Fair in the Middle
There have been a lot of significant beginnings and endings lately. The end of summer. The beginning of locals’ summer. The start of school — new chapters and first days.
But, what about the middle? The end of the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair brings me, and probably more than a few others, back to that middle.
Remembrance of the Fair Stock Room Dude — Dad
The following piece was originally published on Aug. 31, 2015. It is being re-run, with changes only in the amount of years that have passed, in memory of my father, Bill Van Develde, former longtime Fair Haven Fire Company member, president and captain of the Fire Police and chairman of the stock room at the fair, on the anniversary of his death on Aug. 31, 1983. RIP, Dad. You are missed. Thank you for all the embarrassing moments that I didn’t appreciate enough. Thank you for making Fair Haven my home. Thank you for being a real dad. See you later at the fair …
Photo/FHFD booklet
By Elaine Van Develde
It’s been 36 years, but I can still see his face and that kooky Brylcreemed hairdo. I can still hear his crazy belly laugh and that signature “Take ‘er easy, buddy!” I can still see him slapping kids on the back, forever clutching his trusty clipboard, pencil perched behind his ear, sweat on the brow and finger wagging.
Continue reading Remembrance of the Fair Stock Room Dude — Dad
Retro Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair Balloon Boss & Buddies
The following piece was originally published in August of 2015. Here it is again in honor of the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair and my mom, Sally Van Develde, to whom this site is dedicated …
Growing up in Fair Haven with parents in the fire company, Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair time meant time spent inflating punch balls during the day and helium balloons at night.
Continue reading Retro Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair Balloon Boss & Buddies
Focus: A Fair Firefighters’ Night
A little rain didn’t dampen spirits for the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair’s Firefighters’ Night.
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Retro Fair Take-Out
Photo/Elaine Van Develde
It’s something to steep in … the thought of any sort of Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair food. Many do all fair week long.
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Focus: A Fair Start in Fair Haven
Call it a fair beginning. The end of the summer signals the start of The Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair — more than a century’s worth of big tradition in the small peninsula borough.
Continue reading Focus: A Fair Start in Fair Haven
A Fair Haven Girl’s Fair Haunt
The night is still. A light is on. Trucks are out of the bays. Cartoony faces and ghosts in empty seats on unassembled carnival rides stare back in the dark. Someone’s cooking at the Fair Haven firehouse. It’s fair time.
Continue reading A Fair Haven Girl’s Fair Haunt
I’ll Just Pick: Sweet Tavolo Gluten-Free
It all started with a misbegotten box of bad muffin mix.
A customer wanted Tavolo Pronto’s Patti Balderas to whip him up some gluten-free muffins for his morning visit to the Fair Haven stop back in 2010.
Continue reading I’ll Just Pick: Sweet Tavolo Gluten-Free
Focus: RFH Class of ’79 & Good Times
If the song fits …
It was the summer of ’79. Bean bag chairs and Sony Walkmans were cool. Trivial Pursuit was launched. McDonald’s introduced its Happy Meal. A gallon of gas cost 79 cents. Disco dancing was still cruising in popularity. And the number one song on the charts on Aug. 17, 1979 was Good Times.
In Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) land, good times are exactly what a bunch of seniors who had just graduated in June were after. It was that summer of senior year — a summer of fun, milestones and memories. Lifetime connectors.
Bonds. Time. Trends. Music. Dance. Good Times was fitting in that summer of ’79. They were all good times; even the worst were the best. And four decades later, the song was the perfect time capsule to capture the RFH Class of ’79’s 40th reunion on that day, Aug. 17.
In RFH land, while bean bag chairs and Walkmans weren’t spotted on the gala weekend (that may still being going) and games of Trivial Pursuit were likely not played. The class was still cruising around the towns to the old haunts, like Barnacle Bill’s, Undici (formerly the ol’ Hook, Line & Sinker hangout), Even Tide, Salt Creek Grille, Donovan’s and just about any other of their hometown streets. The alligator shirts, topsiders and Rumson Roulette belts have since fazed out, but those good times live on.
“These are those good times! Leave your cares behind” and take a look … (and don’t forget to click to enlarge!)
Thanks to Jackie Iglesias Leslie and Karen Apy for the photos! Congrats on your reuniting, RFH Class of ’79!
Retro RFH Class Reuniting
It’s 40th reunion time for Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School’s Class of ’79!
And as this year’s reuniting begins, thoughts turn to RFH tradition and how reuniting is done by taking a gander back at the class before, ’78, and how those renegade RFHers got their parties started and finished through the years. Though, testament tells that the RFH Class of ’78 has had its own tradition of never saying “the party’s over.”
Continue reading Retro RFH Class Reuniting
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