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Focus: Hazy Dock Daze & Tuesdays

The view from the Fair Haven Dock is a bit askew if you’re fast forwarding from a sunny Monday to a hazy Tuesday with The Carpenters’ 1971 song Rainy Days and Mondays burrowing a massive ear worm in your head.

So, just going along with an updated Hazy Days and Tuesdays doesn’t get rid of the tune, just the lyrics. And then there’s the view from the dock. It seldom, if ever, gets one down.

In fact, it seems like there’s always a giant yellow smiley face, just like the 70s, calling all, like a siren, to the end of the dock. It’s that terminal sign that sunnier days always return. So, in anticipation of the sun and solace of the timeless view from the dock, take a look (click on one pic to enlarge and scroll), soak it up and smile.

Sunny days topped with sprinkles on top are ahead, according to the National Weather Service …

Retro R-FH Water Rescue Cruisin’

Fair Haven First Aid Squad’s Water Rescue Unit circa early 1970s
Photo/FHFD media collection

It’s the heart of summer. And with summertime in the Rumson-Fair Haven area comes a tsunami of waterborne activity.

It’s the peninsula way of life. Always has been. And because of it, back in 1962, members of the Fair Haven Fire Department’s First Aid Squad created an underwater rescue team, as they referred to it. The team would exist for water rescue and recovery emergencies. It made sense.

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What’s Cooking: Fair Haven Fish Fry

Rainy days and Saturdays won’t get the folks at Fair Haven’s Fisk Chapel down.

They’re cooking up something good, as usual. It’s a fish fry this time; and it benefits the historic church in this Fair Haven niche.

The serving up of the good food and company starts at noon and lasts until the food is gone at the church at 35 Fisk St., Fair Haven,

Here are more details …

Retro Crazy Days of RFH Boys’ Summer

RFH Class of 1979 guys on a day at the beach Photo/courtesy of Paul Hughes, Class of '79 reunion slideshow
RFH Class of 1979 guys on a day at the beach
Photo/courtesy of Paul Hughes, Class of ’79 reunion slideshow

A reprise in honor of sizzling hot summer days on the beach with some cool RFH guys … 

Remember that horror movie When a Stranger Calls? The babysitter  gets a repeated freaky call from a stranger asking, in measured terror tones, “Have you checked the children lately?”

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Retro Icon’s Summer Spirit

Sea Bright icon Dizzy Dave parties on in his haunt
Photo/Facebook photo of Joanne DiStefano Garelli

A reprise in honor of the Sea Bright icon known as Dizzy Dave on his 70th birthday … There’s a birthday fundraiser going on for Dizzy Dave with a goal set for $4,000 to help him out. So far, $1,175 has been raised. Click here to contribute to making Dave’s 70th monumental. “Dave turns 70 on July 5th and it would be really nice for him to feel the love of all the people who know him in our wonderful town that takes care of its own,” said David Van Vliet, the organizer.

Nothing says local and summer quite like a glimpse into the past of a Sea Bright icon in his local beach element, albeit a likely polar bear plunge scenario here.

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Focus: Dawn of a New Week at the Dock

Oh, what a beautiful morning! The tune is an ear worm of background music for this scene that started the day and week today in Fair Haven. And it’s not Oklahoma, either. It’s the Fair Haven Dock at sunrise.

The serene scene never gets old. And while the focus may be honed in on the familiar scene in this utopia, it changes every so slightly with each ripple of water, each sigh of contentment with each capture.

This dawn of this new day in the Rumson-Fair Haven area was freeze framed in warmth by Fair Havenite Susan Culbert.

A snapshot of embracing calm. Ahhhhhh …

The week starts with a forecast of sunny skies and warmth through Wednesday and some thunder and rain toward the end of the week, according to the National Weather Service. Take a look …

Retro RFH Graduation Daisy Chain

RFH 1978 graduation, replete with daisy chain Photo/Daryl Cooper Ley
RFH 1978 graduation, replete with daisy chain
Photo/Wanda Becker via Daryl Cooper Ley

The following was originally posted in May of 2017. It is being reprised in honor of the recent RFH graduation, traditions of the past and the RFH Daisy Chain girl featured who passed away in 2019 — Daryl Cooper Ley.

It was considered a privilege and honor. They were chosen from the junior class at RFH to serve as the debutante-like ushers for the graduating class. All dressed in white and supposedly gracefully toting a chain of daisies, the Daisy Chain girls were a fixture of high school finery at graduations in the 1970s.

The origins of the somewhat upper-crust tradition date back to the 1900s, but this Retro Pic of the Day was snapped in 1978.

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