Well, after more soggy, rainy days, the sun made an appearance in the Rumson-Fair Haven area and beckoned people back to the Navesink riverfront.
At the Fair Haven Dock, the scene was one of solitary sun worshipping and a little riverfront romping. Contentment. Comfort on the homefront.
As the forecast tells, the sun will just do a bit of peering on Monday. Then we’ll be hit with hazardous rainy conditions by Tuesday. So, enjoy and get your river romping in.
According to the National Weather Service, there will be rain after 11 p.m. on Monday and showers with a possible thunderstorm and a flood watch on Tuesday. Though, the temperature will hit the mid-60s. The sun comes back on Wednesday.
The stage is set for area teen talent and Broadway stars to bring down the house at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) to benefit homeless youth with the third annual Night of FUTURE Broadway Stars.
The proceeds of musical extravaganza set for Monday, April 3 at 7 p.m. go to the homeless youth programs and services offered at Covenant House in Asbury Park, serving Asbury, Long Branch, Keansburg and other shore towns.
After a few gloomy, dank, rainy days, the sun came out on Wednesday, the tide was low and people, ducks and dogs took to a little solace in the sun down by the river in Rumson.
Take a look … (And don’t forget to click to enlarge!)
Knollwood School seventh-grader P.J. Rawlins performs a piano solo of “Clocks,” a hit song by Coldplay.
Photo/Fair Haven School District
Knollwood School eighth-grader Isabelle Papa performs “Minuet and Allegro” on the flute accompanied by Sara Marino and Karen Hauge.
Photo/Fair Haven School District
An ensemble performance of “Shoshanna” featured seventh-grader Hannah Bates on bass guitar, sixth-grader Ben Plesser on drum set/mallets, seventh-grader Liz Harby on drum set/mallets, and seventh-grader Nora Phillips on clarinet.
Photo/Fair Haven School District
And the middle school musicians played on … in the Fair Haven School District’s annual Chamber Music Recital at Knollwood School recently.
“Times have changed,” as the lyrics to Cole Porter’s Anything Goes go …
Yes they have. And they haven’t.
The shows are still going on, but they’re quite different types of productions. The students at Fair Haven’s Knollwood School have staged Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Jr. The show went on in the beginning of the month.
And, way back in 1974, the school’s second ever musical was staged with the middle schoolers. You guessed it. It was Anything Goes.
Yes, times have changed, and mostly because these days they actually have junior versions of otherwise adult-like shows that aren’t really all that adult.
In fact, in those days, nothing was thought of doing a pretty darn adult musical that starred a, ahem, “lady of the evening” turned evangelist, a gangster and his maul, a stowaway, an heiress and a kooky English gentleman all aboard a ship and involved in madcap farce and love triangles.
Who knew? Well, the 1974 cast of Knollwood’s version of Anything Goes certainly didn’t.
Eighth graders Matt Reulbach (Lefou) and Sarah Dolan (Gaston) rehearse Knollwood School’s production of “Beauty and the Beast Jr.”
Photo/Fair Haven School District
Knollwood School seventh-grader Sophia Barabas as Belle in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast Jr.” at Knollwood School.
Photo/Fair Haven School District
Featured in Knollwood School’s production of “Beauty and the Beast Jr.” featured are: eighth grader Matt Reulbach (Lefou), eighth grader Aidan Thorp (Beast), sixth grader Evan Callas (Chip), seventh grader Matt Newman (Wolf) and sixth grader Jack McBarron (Narrator), sixth grader Antonio Darcy (Maurice), and sixth grader Jake D’Angelo (Monsieur D’Arque).
Photo/Fair Haven School District
A “tale as old as time” came to Fair Haven’s Knollwood School’s stage when 40 young middle school students performed a production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Jr. a few weeks ago.
A 1976 River Rats crew Photo/courtesy Marc Edelman, Facebook
With the recent death and impending memorial of former longtime Fair Havenite and River Rats purser, Warner White, thoughts turn back to some good old days of being a kid rat, so to speak, and hanging out down by the river.
It’s a rite of passage in the Rumson-Fair Haven area that kid life be rife with river-oriented activities.
River Rats was the king of that sort of thing — especially in the summertime. The little riverfront nook at the foot of Battin Road in Fair Haven was that special place where kids and boating-bonded buddies learned how to sail and navigate riverfront life with the sand between their toes and perpetual smiles on their faces. It was a unique little sailors’ club. Still is.
River Rats has been a Fair Haven institution since 1955.
It all started like this: “In October 1955 shortly after he moved from New York, Captain Walter Isbrandtsen wrote to a friend: ‘I have purchased a house in a small community on the New Jersey coast where I am gradually becoming active … in an organization known as Dads Incorporated … whose activities include a newly established program designed to take full advantage of a neighboring river …'”
Captain Isbrandtsen organized the family-oriented sailing group and became the first Skipper of River Rats, as it is written in the River Rats’ biographical history.
So, the Retro Pic(s) of the Day takes us back to the U.S.A. bicentennial year of 1976 and a bunch of young River Rats.
This crew is comprised mostly of RFH classmates who gathered by the boat launch at the end of Battin Road in Fair Haven to offer a glimpse of their day as a reminder of what growing up by the river is all about.
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