Category Archives: Opinion

Editorials, letters to the editor and other articles reflecting on iconic people, places and traditions related to them in the area.

Local Life, Opinion

Retro Stylin’ 2002 Knollwood Grads

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Knollwood School Class of 2002 Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Knollwood School Class of 2002
Photo/Elaine Van Develde

A reprise in honor of that eighth grade Knollwood graduation on Wednesday … Congrats in advance, grads!

The Fair Haven Knollwood School grads are styling every year. And, the truth is that the eighth grade graduation attire has improved to the point of even parents turning wannabes of that mini-fashion world.

You’d have to admit, though, that fad dress-up attire has been kinder to the male gender over the years — except for the leisure suit. That was an unforgiving polyester fashion fail.

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Local Life, Opinion

Retro RFH Teacher-Administrator Cool at School Moment

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A look back at RFH science teacher James Parker and Assistant Superintendent Donald Trotter Photo/George Day
A look back at RFH science teacher James Parker and
Assistant Superintendent Donald Trotter
Photo/George Day

A reprise, originally posted in 2015, because a new RFH superintendent has reported to the office … 

RFH has a new superintendent. He’s reported to the office and has walked those hallowed halls of good ol’ RFH.

And with thoughts of welcoming the new, the old and that teacher-administrator rapport comes to mind. Back in the day, or the ’70s at least, there were those administrators who weren’t just a Charlie Brown teacher’s voice cawing over the ol’ daydreaming student’s non-thought process. Some, or one in particular, are remembered as a real education innovators.

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Local Life, Opinion

Retro RFH English Teacher Appreciation

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RFH English teachers of the 1970s
Photo/RFH yearbook

What would Teacher Appreciation Day be without a little ode to those who unwittingly set a writer on her twisted path to write — about them?

They are the English teachers at RFH. Back in the 1970s, they comprised quite the crew of educators. They taught us how to communicate more effectively. They chided us for using improper grammar. They expected better when they knew we were capable of the best. They glommed onto the small details that mattered in stringing a better sentence together with the peskiness of a dangling participle.

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Local Life, Opinion

Retro Getting In Step with an RFH Icon

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George Giffin moving feet to the beat with RFH Drill team girls
Photo/RFH Yearbook

A reprise originally posted on, no fooling, April 1, 2021, because on a dreary day, sometimes an RFHer just has to get up and dance. Cheers to the leader, the iconic George Giffin …

“OK, pick your dance partners,” RFH’s iconic George Giffin said at a 70s ballroom dance class.

The cool guys scurried to get the most popular girls as the tune countdown ticked away. I was the last girl left. Left footed, Lainey. Yep. Giff chuckled a little, looked at the two boys left as they backed into the wall like frightened wallflower turtles.

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Obituaries, Opinion

Remembering Fair Haven’s Garry Allers: A Lifetime of Relative Kindness Passed On

It’s all relative. You’ve heard it before. “He was like family.” Like. And sometimes people just say someone was family, no “like” involved. Family.

That’s usually because sometimes, DNA be damned, someone is no doubt family to someone, or many, in every way but the genetics. And sometimes, that’s just because a person’s actions in life scream a louder familial compassion and love than their genes — like a bear hug that squeezes all the good into us.

One girl called forever Fair Havenite Garry Allers her uncle. Uncle Garry was laid to rest yesterday. While on this Earth, he didn’t flinch at the relative reference from his adopted niece. It was the truth in every way that mattered, after all. Yes, it’s all relative.

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Local Life, Opinion

Retro RFH Bridge to a Reunion Invite

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A bridge RFH reunion invite
Photo/Doug Borden

Well, it’s a summer of revived RFH reunions and RFHers love a good reunion and embrace them by reuniting however and whenever they can.

As far as getting the word out, though, things have changed quite a bit since those first 10-year reunions for the classes of the 60s, 70s and even 80s and 90s and before. But, there’s one iconic mode of invite that has been missing for quite some time. The painting of the bridge!

There was a time when communication was limited to phone books, landline phones, snail mail and word of mouth. Of course, there were paper invites. But, there was nothing better than getting the word out by just reverting to old school days and painting that bridge.

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Local Life, Opinion

Old News: Heatwave of Smoking Hot Insanity

Yes, we’re having a heatwave — and there’s nothing tropically alluring about it. It’s smoking-hot sweaty-ugly.

We’re talking heatwave now. We’ll get to the smoking hot story of insanity in a minute. And you really don’t want to miss that butt of the newsreel.

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Local Life, Opinion

Retro RFH Batty Gym Suit Home Run

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A reprise in honor of the girls, baseball season and not having to wear these horrific mandatory gym suits anymore! Strike! The suits are out! Phew! Remember the fun and the horror with us … (Be sure to CLICK on one photo to enlarge and scroll to fully experience the horror. Ha!)

It’s just plain batty! Batter’s up at RFH as baseball season is in full swing. But, looking back at some RFH 1970s games, you have to wonder when or why, exactly, there was ever a season of the ol’ gym suit, baseball or softball aside.

Really. Ponder it. Those things that made girls look like Stay Puff marshmallows, or, worse, a big baby with a onesie that had enough space for a diaper or, well … you get the picture.

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Local Life, Opinion

Retro Little Tykes’ River Time

Fair Haven river dwellers of the Drake family
Photo/courtesy of Robin Drake Fitch

Quality river time. It’s a rite of passage for any Rumson-Fair Haven area kid.

When the spring air hits, the banks of the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers call to kids like mythological Sirens. And they burrow themselves in the sand and tides like hermit crabs.

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Obituaries, Opinion

Cooper’s Legacy: The Art of Circle Gaming Among Childhood Friends

“We’re captive on the carousel of time … We can’t return. We can only look behind from where we came and go round and round and round in the circle game …” ~ Joni Mitchell

The news hit his nimble-footed, intricately painted-and-penned world like a sledge hammer. Thirty-year-old Thomas “Cooper” Ley had died. He was my best friend’s beautiful boy.

The wound left by the merciless hammer’s mark was a deep one. Somehow it didn’t break the circle, though. It wouldn’t. Never could. That was the consolation, so I was posthumously reminded by his mother, if there was to be any at all in something that seemed so senseless and unfair.

Circle. It was stuck in my head. Once that hammer hit, she started whispering to me as I grappled with how to remember him best for her, for his family, for his friends, with my words.

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Opinion

Retro Benched RFH Halloween Paraders

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RFH Halloween of 1977 with a gaggle of girls
Photo/George Day

Well, it’s about that time for Halloween parades. In fact, Fair Haven’s was on Sunday. And, back in the day, RFH had its own high school Halloween parade.

Some bunny — or a few bunnies and other assorted suspicious characters — got dressed for the occasion, paraded themselves around campus and benched themselves for a spell, too.

The Halloween spirit is in the air. And these senior gaggle of girls embodied it. From controversial, yet timely and popular at the time, Playboy bunny costumes, to Raggedy Ann, a ghost, a cat, a gypsy and whatever else, they were parading and pleased with their choices.

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