Editorials, letters to the editor and other articles reflecting on iconic people, places and traditions related to them in the area.
The year was 1977. It was an RFH Halloween.
Seniors of the Class of ’78 were geared up for some ghostly fun. They gathered in the Senior Commons and paraded around, and, yes, out of the confines of the RFH campus.
By Elaine Van Develde
It’s as good as it gets for anyone in the area and beyond — that classic lobster pizza at Val’s Tavern in Rumson.
The pie, as they call it, is pretty simple, yet has been a deluxe gourmet sort of pizza treat for many for decades.
It’s a thin-crust pizza flush with all the normal pizza stuff, but great quality, like the good sauce and cheese. Add to that some Brazilian lobster and, if you so choose, some hot sauce.
By Elaine Van Develde
There’s nothing like the wrap — of anything, really.
It represents a feeling of accomplishment — in a way. In show business, “Its a wrap!” brings on a sigh of relief and some celebration. In other circles, such as food forums, it prompts some speculation and, yes, satiation.
When you have an option of choosing a wrap to eat, for instance, it often represents several ingredients you like wrapped up in some sort of flour tortilla or variation thereof, a/k/a wrap.
A lot of area eateries offer a wrap version of a favorite luncheon-meat-and-cheese- or salad-stuffed something or other.
Then there are those who like to eat it raw — the wrap and its contents. For them there is such a thing as a collard leaf-stuffed vegan variety. And they have it at Seed to Sprout in Fair Haven.
As Lucille Ball said in her Vitameatavegaman commercial on I Love Lucy, “It’s tasty, too!”
So, as the first in Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect’s I’ll Just Pick weekly series, the pick of the week is the raw cashew collard wrap from Seed to Sprout — and from a non-vegan who really relishes a big fat meaty sub for some lunch solace on a bad day.
This wrap, enveloping the taste buds with a creamy, crunchy vegan catch-all, features a mash of organic raw cashews topped with alfalfa sprouts, shredded carrots, tomato and mixed with extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar and filtered water. Then there’s a nutritional yeast additive.
And, of course, the whole thing is wrapped up in a collard leaf. Call it a foodie Collard Patch doll.
Call it that, because even if you’re not a vegan, you may want to adopt this lunch lifestyle change.
It’s a cashew hummus sort of splendor all wrapped up and ready to healthily munch. Really.
Seed to Sprout opened a few months ago in July in the Acme Market shopping plaza, off River Road (officially 560 River Road, though), in Fair Haven.
Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School graduates Cara Pescatore and Alex Mazzucca own and operate the eatery, which is a second location to the original in Avon.
The menu is replete with all sorts of all-day organic vegan breakfast dishes: granola and yogurt parfait, sprout breakfast bowl and avocado breakfast sandwich.
Under the raw header, there’s also a sunflower burrito wrapped in collard and raw pizza.
There are also lots of grilled sandwich goodies, that are not quite what they sound like, such as the bacon cheddar melt, which features coconut bacon and not your average cheddar. The grilled avocado sandwich, RFHers tell us is a favorite, too, not to mention the seed salads and rice bowls.
There are also soups.
Check out the menu by clicking on the photo above or check out the website by clicking here.
Seed to Sprout is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Dinner is served at the Avon location on Thursday nights.
There has long been a debate in the Rumson-Fair Haven area about the merits and menaces inherent in skateboarding as a sport.
In the late 1990s and 2000, a contingent of parents and teens rallied for a skate park in Fair Haven. And there was also a group as enthusiastically opposed as supporters were supportive.
Fall is here and school is in full swing.
At Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School students are back in class, in the halls, in the cafeteria, in study hall … somewhere in that building on Ridge Road with the tower.
You get the drift.
However, on March 13, 1979, they were outside — in force.
They had staged a walkout “in protest of the Board of Education’s decision to terminate three teachers in order to stay within its state-mandated spending limit,” according to the archives of the Red Bank Register.
So, the Retro Pic of the Day takes us back to that day with a photo of an unpublished Register photo of that day that appeared in the 2011 Monmouth County Library exhibit entitled Red Bank Register: 40 Photographs, 1976-1985.
The exhibit featured the work of several Register photographers. The photos came from years’ worth of preservation of negatives from the work of Carl Andrews, James J. Connolly, Carl Forino, Dave Kingdon, Don Lordi and Larry Perna.
While the records did not indicate which photographer took the RFH shot, it’s a classic, so we’re sharing it in our look back for the day. Carl Andrews was a Rumson resident. Though it’s not clear if he took the photo.
While I was in my first year of college when the photo was taken, I do recall hearing about this walkout. RFH students were always very proactive with school politics.
“The students, who said the Board‘s decision showed ‘callousness and disdain for teachers as individuals,’ argued that the school should have waited for older teachers to retire instead of firing younger ones with less seniority,” the photo description for the exhibit said. “Tora Doremus, Board president, stated that the quality of education at Rumson-Fair Haven would be maintained and that ‘I don‘t think this walkout served the students‘ purpose.’ More than 300 students participated in the demonstration on Friday morning, March 13, 1979.”
Hey, I think that’s Erin Bell, daughter of RFH English teacher Marilyn Bell, right in the front.
The Red Bank Register Negative Collection is in the Monmouth County Archives and the exhibit featuring the 40 photos was at Monmouth County Library Headquarters in Manalapan in October of 2011.
It’s widespread area news that RFH Class of 2006 grad Brooks Robinson was sworn in as a Fair Haven Police Department patrolman Monday night.
Robinson started in the department in 2012 as what is called a special officer. Pretty serious stuff, right?
There’s nothing quite as wonderful as an old friend who’s known you since you were a kid. And there’s also nothing worse than losing that friend at a young age.
The worst of it happened a couple of days ago to friends in the Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School alumni community.
A wave of shock and sadness engulfed the Class of ’78 with the announcement of the death of 55-year-old classmate Debra “Debbie” Clarke Crowell on Sept. 8.
There have been some losses of the all-too-young in the class already. This was the latest.
Continue reading Remembrance: RFH Grad Debra Clarke Crowell Dies at 55
“But I don’t wanna walk on the rope next to her!” I cried from under my fresh-cut kindergarten bangs. “I wanna walk on the rope next to Pam!”
Pam was my neighbor. She was my best buddy.
It was 1965. Our Fair Haven kindergarten class was the last to have its first year of school at what was called the Youth Center, now the Fair Haven Police Station and Community Center on Fisk Street.
We kindergarteners were also the last to be tugged down the street on a rope, yes a rope, headed by an official-looking police-type lady.
I forget what her name was, but she scared the bejesus out of us, especially a determined mini me. No, not much has changed.
However, that rope would have probably somehow been considered inhumane now, I’m thinking. Hey, they needed to keep us walking in tow.
And, guess what? They did, despite the fact that this one little girl’s small world was turned topsy turvy because she couldn’t walk next to Pam.
There were loops for our little hands to grasp onto on either side of the rope.
You see, no one drove anyone to school then.
You could say that we were more environmentally conscious. Or you could just say that we were probably poorer. Simple.
No one drove kids to school, mostly because there was only one car per family. There was no Third Street congestion problem. Nope.
Granted, a lot of moms stayed home. And when the dads went to work, unless they worked close enough to come home for lunch, mom didn’t have a car until after 5 p.m.
If moms worked, dads dropped them off and picked them up or vice versa. A lucky few had two cars. So, needless to say, the transportation for kids was that rope. That lady picked us all up, as I recall, on Hance Road somewhere.
That rope — well, that was our kiddie bus. And we liked it — sorta. We just had to.
This 1965 kindergarten class in the Retro Pic of the Day was the last to take the daily rope trek to the Youth Center.
Front and center in this photo, taken by the family of Diane Smith Carmona, are Frank Buchanan and Bobby McLellan. They’re holding the loops, but not looking all too pleased about it. I’m pitching a fit somewhere in the back. School days, rope days …
Imagine that. Mommy drops you off at the rope, not the bus, and you have to walk to school next to someone you didn’t know until the first day of school?
Oh, the trauma of it all. I guess they thought we’d be trouble makers. I wasn’t even allowed to sit near Pam in class!
Whaaaaaaa! How was your child’s first day without a rope?
It was 50/50 announcing business as usual for John Riley on the last night of the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair. It was also his 69th birthday.
Someone got a hold of the mic that’s usually always in Riley’s hands and announced that the birthday on Saturday.
So, Monday’s Retro Pic(s) of the Day is dedicated to Riley.
Riley is pretty modest. And he looks exactly the same as he did back in the early 1970s when this editor first met him during her childhood.
Riley has been a lifetime Fair Havenite and a decades-long member of the Fair Haven Fire Department. He also worked in the borough’s Department of Public Works seemingly forever.
He always has a smile on his face. He wears his modest, gentle demeanor and love of hometown on his sleeve and in his eyes.
Happy Birthday, John Riley! Thank you for all you’ve done for the love of Fair Haven!
— Elaine Van Develde
As closing time for the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair came, yet another old picture popped up, and there was a little chat on the fair grounds with a present co-chairman of the fair and the stockroom guy of more recent years — Andy Schrank and Frank Leslie.
Schrank, now one of three co-chairs, took us back in time a bit. He reminded us of the times when there was only one chairman. Before there were the present three, Gary Verwilt, former longtime Knollwood School teacher, had the job. Back in the day, though, from the late 1960s to the late 80s, that guy was James Acker.
So, the Retro Pic of the day features a photo of Acker peering out of the stockroom at fair time somewhere in the middle of those years.
What does the chairman do? Well, it’s what it sounds like. He has to make sure that everything is up and running right, son Bill said.
There’s some haggling that goes on over purchases, rentals and state operation licenses.
In then end, though, it’s all boils down to just making sure things are always running smoothly. And they always have.
James Acker, or Jimmy, as my dad called him, always had a sincere smile on his face and twinkle in his eyes, especially when talking about the fire company. He always looked people straight in the eyes when talking to them, too. He was just a nice guy who, his son reminds us, was stubbornly dedicated when it came time to chair that fair — but always a friend.
“I remember going to New York to Conelle’s to buy stuff (prizes) for the fair and rent the tents,” Bill said. “When Dad and Mr. Conelle got together, it was like watching two dogs fight over a bone. But when it was done, Mr. Conelle and Dad were like old friends again.”
Yes, James Acker was loyal. He loved his fire company and his friends. A perfect example of his extreme loyalty was his helicopter dad manner when protecting the fair’s famous clam chowder secret.
He had the secret recipe to the much sought-after soup. He got it from an old Fair Haven friend. He made that chowder with that recipe, Acker kids getting things cooking beside him, for decades.
As promised, Bill said, the recipe went to the grave with him. He had promised the hander-down of the hush-hush concoction that it would never be shared with another soul. It wasn’t.
It was a measure of commitment to the best for Jim Acker, loved his fellow firemen — enough to make sure he got the fair the best chowder around. And it was bowl-licking good.
Oh, the new recipe is good, too, but he and some others would have to argue that the secret recipe version had a bit of an edge.
A 1983 story from the Red Bank Register archives on the fair has Jim Acker quoted. He said that the fair drew about 5,000 people a night then. He also said that it took about 225 people a night to operate it. Don’t forget, there was no internet purchasing then. He said he started going into New York and buying $25,000 worth of prizes in January (from Mr. Conelle, whose first name escapes Bill) for the 15 games of chance.
The big prize in 1983 was a Dodge 400 convertible, rather than the present super 50/50.
Oh, and among the prizes purchased were cartons of cigarettes for the Big Six tent, now the Money Wheel.
Step right up for a spin on the fair memory wheel! Game of chance? No. It’s a sure bet that there are many more where it came from.
RIP James Acker. Thanks for the memories … oh, and the chowder!
By Elaine Van Develde
It’s been 32 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.
That’s the vivid, comforting ghost image of Bill Van Develde I still see and hear roaming around on the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair grounds. He was head of the stockroom back in the 1970s and 80s and he was my quirky, big-hearted dad.
Continue reading Going Retro with the Fair Man in the Stockroom
By Elaine Van Develde
Don Blesse lived in Rumson for nearly half a century.
The U.S. Navy World War II and Korean War veteran raised his family in Rumson. And every Memorial and Veterans Day service you’d see the tall, gentleman front-and-center at Victory Park paying ode to fallen fellow vets, hat to his heart.
In fact, it was not too long ago, in May, when we last saw Blesse in his usual spot at the Rumson Memorial Day service.
Now we know that he will be missing at the Veterans Day service in November. That’s because he passed away at 89 on Aug. 12.
We remember Mr. Blesse. We knew his kids. We went to RFH with them. And while we did not know their dad well, we knew he was a vet. We knew he was a father of three. We knew he was excited a couple of years ago, when we chatted with him after a Veteran’s Day service, to soon be on his way to a visit with them.
Sporting his signature veteran’s hat, he modestly talked about how he was an aviation electrician who worked on aircraft carriers in the Atlantic Ocean during the war.
He was proud, yet soft-spoken and modest. You could see his love of country and hometown. He wore it in his smile and demeanor, his bride, the mother of his children still by his side, also smiling contentedly.
He said nothing about working tirelessly to bring that veteran’s memorial to Victory Park that day. We read that in his obituary.
Don Blesse died on Aug. 12 at his relatively new home in Red Bank. He won’t be at the next memorial service in town. His simple legacy will.
We missed his own memorial service. But, we haven’t forgotten him.
People like him shouldn’t be forgotten — people living their lives, cognizant of and considerate of the people in them, serving their country and community in modest, meaningful ways, doing the right thing.
It was nice to have that brief chat with that dad and man behind the kids we knew that one day, a couple of years ago. It was good to get that glimpse — however fleeting — of yet another person who had passed through our lives, in an unobtrusive way, through his children, through his sometimes everyday, sometimes grander contributions to the community.
“Speak to people.” It’s what Fair Haven Police Chief Darryl Breckenridge told us was his mother’s best advice to him in life.
She was right. One hello, one day, brought a little insight into a life and a nice surprise. And every time we saw Don Blesse after that, we remembered a little something about him.
Now we say goodbye, never forgetting the hello.
RIP Mr. Blesse. Condolences to Carol, Paul, Donald and Ken — and your many friends and extended family.
Don Blesse’s obituary from Thompson Memorial Home …
Donald Edwin Blesse, 89, of Red Bank died at home on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2015.
He was born in Weehawken and lived in Rumson and Little Silver before moving to Red Bank three years ago.
He was a tall, friendly and kind man who willingly served for many years in the communities in which he lived and his church. After earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Business Administration from Rutgers University, he worked for Bell Laboratories for 38 years before retiring in 1987.
He honorably served in the US Navy as an Aviation Electrician’s Mate aboard aircraft carriers during WWII and the Korean War.
Continually steadfast in his faith as a member of St. George’s by the River Episcopal Church for 53 years, he served as church school Superintendent for 28 years, Canterbury Fair treasurer, sang in the choir and was on the Vestry.
In Rumson, he was on the school board, active as a leader in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, and in later years worked tirelessly to create a new veterans’ memorial in Victory Park.
He is survived by: his wife of 63 years, Carol Einbeck Blesse; three sons, Donald A. Blesse, of Lakewood, OH; Ken Blesse, of Fairview Park, OH; Paul Blesse, of Johns Creek, GA; five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, donations in his name would be welcome to the St. George’s Outreach or Memorial funds, 7 Lincoln Avenue, Rumson, NJ 07760; www.stgeorgesrumson.org. In the notes section, please identify which fund.
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