Editorials, letters to the editor and other articles reflecting on iconic people, places and traditions related to them in the area.
In anticipation of the return of the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair, we take a look back again at a game of chance, its history and families that spin together.
Most often, working at the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair is a longtime family affair.
So, the Retro Pic of the Day today is an ode to just that, in addition to featuring those behind the booths.
Continue reading Retro Fair Family Affair Spin“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
Fred Rogers
And sometimes that meeting comes every day with the same person on the same street for about half a century. What is left stays … in the neighborhood heart.
“How ya doin’?” It’s what I heard in a friendly, mellow cadence from across the street pretty much every day for most of my life. It was a soothing, subtle reminder that I was home and a good neighbor was always there, looking out, never judging, nitpicking or naysaying. Caring, instead, with a knowing smile and a few simple words.
Knowing. Knowing that we were all there for the same reason. Neighborhood. Simple gestures. That’s all it really takes. And take it to microcosmic heights unknown is what this one neighbor did. Daily.
The neighbor was Conrad. Conrad Decher. The forever Fair Haven guy from my 54-year block was laid to rest on Monday. His spirit, however, will always be fluttering around. The flutter. It’s gentle. It’s not grand, not intrusive. Still, it’s deliberate. It stays — a subtle, soft, strong, consistent gesture. Like a heartbeat. After all, here, in the heart, stays the neighborhood.
Continue reading Beautiful Days in the Neighborhood: Remembering Conrad from the Block“Her life was meaningful, and she made a positive impact wherever she went. Her family is very proud of the legacy Joyce left behind.“
Family of Joyce Scanlon in her obituary
Legacy. Positive impact. Moments. Impressions. Intricate inflections from one person in the neighborhood. They’re bigger than a neighborhood kid in a small town would think. Snippets from somebody’s mom who likely never knew she or they would be remembered. They would matter.
Then you become an adult, and start to age. And you’ve unwittingly become, or hope to become, that person to someone. You’re somebody’s mom. Oh, there’s not just one of those moms. In a small community, there are many — if you’re looking hard enough to see the microcosms. If you pay attention to those daydreams that made your mind wander about who that lady really is beyond a mom. If you tuck the little things revealed in the musings carefully away in that niche of your mind that rears itself to remind you of what matters.
When you’re that neighborhood kid and all through adulthood, every single time you pass by the home of your childhood friend and classmate, you smile and sigh contentedly — a homesick stalker. Of course, you should have stopped. But it never really occurs to you that one day you won’t be able to and it’ll be up to you to remember the little things. They won’t leave.
The drive-by brings back a waft of simple thoughts of that lady with the bright blue eyes, warm smile and caring way all wrapped up in a no-frills stretchy hair band. It’s then that you know you’re lucky to have grown up with yet another one of those people in your life.
And you remember. You just never forget those little things, like the time you were at that sixth grade Stokes trip and she was volunteering there. She was there for all the kids. And they surely had their moments, too. But, that one day, when something profound was on your wandering, weird mind and you found her by the lake, likely deep in her own thoughts, escaping kids like you, she saw you, smiled and listened as you rattled on about something you thought was so very deep and important.
It was likely that you were scared of that night’s square dance or that the boys, maybe even hers, would capsize your canoe just for laughs. You couldn’t swim. Only in the pool in your back yard or at Camp Arrowhead. A lake was different. In your weird little mind, it had the potential to swallow you whole into the belly of some ominous beast. Or you had anxiety about the popular kids in your cabin. You philosophized quite seriously about all of the kid stuff, earnestly believing in your maturity and depth. She listened like you were a peer. You remembered. She saw you, that kid. You saw her. That mom, a grown-up lady.
It seemed like your secret. She understood you like no other. From then on, she was your secret pal. There were sporadic conversations as you got older, grew up with her kids, in the Acme, at an event or walking down the street. There may have even been more big girl chats. The knowingness was in her eyes each time, even if she struggled to remember your name, whose kid you were, which kid of hers you knew. She always somehow saw you and understood you. And though you’d like to think you were special to this neighborhood lady, somebody’s mom, she just unknowingly had that effect on everyone. She just saw everyone.
And, years later, when you never stopped, but always asked about her, feeling as if this somebody’s mom would terminally be around, you find out it’s too late to stop, to tell her. Her son, your friend since kindergarten, sends a message. She has passed away. Who was even thinking that she had already gotten to the age of 90? Not this kid … at 60. That somebody’s mom who knew every kid mattered, who had that unknowing effect, was Fair Haven’s Joyce Scanlon.
Rest In Peace, Joyce, knowing you mattered in that little town in that special niche in the world — and far beyond.
Here’s what Joyce’s family had to say about her in her obituary …
Longtime Fair Havenite Joyce E. Scanlon (nee Nelson) passed away on July 20. She was 90.
Immersed in the community, while raising four children, Joyce worked in the Fair Haven school system for many years, coached girls’ softball, and volunteered in any way she could. She also was an avid participant in Boy Scouts, beginning as a den mother, then working endless summers at Quail Hill Camp as the Arts & Crafts Director until she was awarded the scouts’ highest honor from the Monmouth County Council.
Joyce was also lifelong Yankees’ fan, attending Babe Ruth’s funeral at Yankee Stadium as a teenager.
“She loved movies, took adult Spanish classes, and cooking. Maybe most (paramount) of all was her love of nature and animals.
Family of Joyce Scanlon
She adopted many animals and loved them all. She traveled to Maine nearly every year of her life, most often camping.
Her genuine, kind personality led her to
many wonderful friendships and experiences.”
Born in Kearny, Joyce graduated from Kearny High School, where she was the drum majorette leading the Kardinal Marching Band at every parade.
After high school she attended Bucknell University, focusing on creative writing and a general pursuit of greater knowledge as a member of Delta Zeta sorority.
After school, she worked for Blue Cross in Newark before marrying Martin J. Scanlon in 1957, who moved in across the street from her on Stuyvesant Avenue. The couple moved to Fair Haven where they remained, raising their children and living their lives out.
Joyce was predeceased by her parents, Harry and Kathryn Nelson, and her loving husband of 52 years, Martin J. Scanlon.
She is survived by: her children, Ellen, and her husband Cameron, Harry, Jim, and his wife Veronica, and Steve, and his wife Patti; her grandchildren, Alex, Matt, Lynelle, Carolyn, and Holly; and her step-grandchildren Jake and Madison Clapp.
Visitation will be Sunday, July 25, from 2 to 5 p.m. at Thompson Memorial Home, Red Bank. A graveside service will be held on Monday, July 26, at 10 a.m. at Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Middletown.
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?”
Continue reading Retro Crazy Days of RFH Boys’ Summer
A reprise from last year in honor of the return of the graduation walks and festivities … Congrats to all the eighth grade grads!
There are two different graduation walks when you’re an eighth grade graduate of Fair Haven’s Knollwood School.
Continue reading Retro Fair Haven Eighth Grade Graduation Walk
In honor of eighth grade graduations, a reprise of that look back to Knollwood School Class of 1974 and best buds …
It’s half past eighth grade graduation time in the Rumson-Fair Haven area.
Every year photos up all over social media. And these crews of grade school cronies seem to have a panache we eighth graders of the 1970s lacked. There they all are … posing, arms wrapped around one another, sporting stylish clothes, tans and toothy grins.
Continue reading Retro Knollwood Grad Fashionistas
“Hey! Where you going?!” I knew the voice. I knew it well. A Gladdis Kravitz Popeye, if you will. Gravelly, purposeful, with that guttural laugh, he’d yell to me from the porch as he, hearing my “beep, beep” call, would run outside to catch me in my disappearing act before I turned the corner.
After all, it was his neighborhood job. He took it seriously — and he relished the relentless taking care kinda ribbing he so generously doled out. Food was usually involved, too, if he could catch you to get you in for a burger, a sandwich or a Twizzler. The scoop was what he was after. He had that bait, too, but you couldn’t get away without a good grilling, burger aside, a lecture and a heaping helping of teasing. Always the scoop — on what I was up to and how my dad would feel about it all. It was a few million steps beyond nosy neighbor. He had to know. It was part of our neighborhood family pact.
Continue reading Bill Lang: A True Love Thy Neighbor Tale
So what’s reminiscing about RFH writing skills honed without throwing typing in there? It’s all about words and getting them on paper, after all. Ding!
Continue reading Retro RFH Typing Business Buzz
Jonathan, is that you? Getting swooped by a seagull can be a bit Alfred Hitchcockish. You just never know that that bird’s eye view is capturing and processing in the moment. Or who the bird is that one — that Jonathan Livingston Seagull — trying to be a non-conformist.
Continue reading Nature Call Focus: Gull’s Eye View“Once there was a way to get back homeward. Once there was a way to get back home … “
Golden Slumbers ~ Paul McCartney & John Lennon
There’s always a way. And for childhood friends, the way is always niched in those time-capsuled moments, until the capsule cracks …
“There is a crack in everything,” musician/writer Leonard Cohen said. “That’s how the light gets in.” The jarring news that childhood friend Fiona Wilson Phillips had died brought me back home with a jolt — a jolt that gaped the time capsule fissure, light seeping through. She had gone there, too, in snippets of her own light. It was all we needed — all any childhood friend needs with that sort of shake-up. The light brings a smile, warmth. Going back home nourishes the soul, after all. If only for a moment.
The truth was that we hadn’t stayed in touch, but we always had our after-school fourth grade club. It wasn’t Paris. It was better. And when we’d see one another at reunions, we’d smile, say the name of our secret kid society out loud and flash back. Our secret. Our way to get back home. Another truth, though, is that we were always there. I think she might like it if I bring her husband and son back to that place from which she came — the club. They’d never been there. It was a secret, after all.
Kid moments. Secrets. The place to which only a few had gone. The places, times we remember, if only for a bright, colorful, warm second. Often people pay no mind to them — the memories. They should. Everyone’s had them. We had ours. The light shines on them.
The pin spotlight veers through those cracks to this …
I don’t know if it was Paul McCartney, the frozen M&Ms or just the kid connection in the random fandom. I do know that one piece of each day from those weekly meetings of the unofficial Paul McCartney Four club (PM4) of 1969 is embedded in my memory like little slivers of glass chards, each having its place in a delicate crystal jigsaw capsule now cracked, a bit shattered. Slivers scattered, stuck, making way to let that light in.
Once those reflective pieces are stuck, they can no longer be broken. They shine. When one person leaves, each splinter stings with the movement away. Fiona had left the Earth, never the club. I certainly hadn’t thought about the PM4 club every day.
I remembered, though — four 9-year-olds deciding to celebrate Paul McCartney as their favorite Beatle weekly with frozen M&Ms, soda, drooling and dancing in one’s living room. It was me, Carolyn, Anne and Fiona.
I can’t even remember why it was Paul McCartney who united us for those weekly meetings and M&Ms, but, for some reason, we chose to grow up in that way together — at that time. I don’t know how it ended up being us four either.
But it was. We were all in Miss Sloane’s fourth grade class at Knollwood in Fair Haven, of course. We thought she was cool. We thought we were cool. She liked us. We were a little obsessed with our young, groovy teacher. We four walked into Red Bank (imagine that, helicopter moms of today!) to “pop in” on her at her apartment. She really must have thought we were a band of nutty little freaks.
But I digress …
We had bonded over our inadvertent stalking of Miss Sloan. When she got married and was expecting a baby, we had to find another target. Somehow, maybe in a conversation on Sportsman’s Field, we decided that we all loved Paul McCartney. What I or any of the four have no recollection of, however, is why it was Paul and not John or even Ringo. No matter. We had bonded over it. We made a pact to meet once a week. And somehow we decided that Ann would be sure to get the M&Ms in the freezer for our meeting day. They were our decided delicacy.
We would meet at Fiona’s on Grange Walk and walk over to Ann’s on Laury. I had no den in my house, so that was out for meetings. Carolyn had a cool house on River Road, but there were too many kids sure to bust up our secret meetings. Ann’s house was by the pond. No one was ever home — or at least we thought not.
We listened to the Beatles, or mostly Paul, because that was our club purpose. We jumped up and down and danced to When I Saw Her Standing There and I Wanna Hold Your Hand — WOOOOOOO!
We swayed and popped M&Ms to The Long and Winding Road, Yesterday and giggled like Gremlin hyenas over You Know My Name. We never knew what to make of that. Way ahead of our pre-teeny bop minds.
We thought, for sure, though, that one of us would marry Paul. Don’t you just love how fine it is for kids to be completely delusional? Still, we secretly waited for one another’s wedding invite.
The memories are static — crackling, jumbled, fuzzy. One thing that’s vivid, though is the light that shone through those cracks, the sound of the laughter, the smiles on those little faces. We were happy. So happy over a bag of M&Ms, Paul and time together. Remembered.
So, for Fiona’s sake, honor your connections to home. Find a way to get back homeward. Let that light in. Stay there for a minute and smile.
Fiona’s high school yearbook quote was “After all, it’s only a weed that turns into a flower in your mind.” ~ Thomas Benton.
Later in life, I learned, she loved Leonard Cohen, who wrote about the cracks. Ironic. But what about Paul?? No mind. He’s still there somewhere. Now and then come together today … Cohen says those cracks let the light in. The light turns that deeply-rooted weed into a flower. Soak up the light in the secret club of your youth … Rest In Peace, Fiona. Thanks for the clubbing, the dance and the sweet.
More about Fiona Lynne Wilson Phillips …
Fiona Lynne Wilson Phillips passed away on Jan. 30 in the comfort and care of her husband and family after a battle with colorectal cancer.
Fiona grew up in Fair Haven, the daughter of James and Sybil Wilson, who still live in their home there.
She loved coming home …
“Fiona enjoyed returning to New Jersey to visit family and friends and attended several RFH high school reunions, including her 40th reunion held in August 2018 in Sea Bright,” her family said in her obituary.
A Fair Haven-raised girl, Fiona, of course, attended Knollwood and what was Willow Street elementary and middle schools and graduated from Rumson Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) in 1978.
After high school, Fiona joined the US Army for a four-year assignment and was stationed in Alabama, Texas, California, and Germany during her service.
Following completion of her military duty, Fiona went on to train in the beauty/aesthetics industry completing advanced training and certifications in cosmetology, makeup, and hair. She based herself in on the west coast and honed her skills in various assignments in professional makeup, hair and wardrobe styling in the entertainment industry.
“Known for her esthetics expertise and excellent ability to connect with people, Fiona spent over 20 years at Barney’s New York, Beverly Hills, as top performing sales professional in cosmetics, skin care, and home fragrance.
Loved ones of Fiona Wilson Phillips in her obituary
With a keen eye, vivid imagination, and the ability to envision the end product, Fiona was gifted in creating things, whether artwork, a stylish outfit, or home décor. She leveraged these skills professionally and personally, enjoying decorating her home in the Los Angeles suburbs by creating unique designs from carefully curated items at the local thrift and discount stores.
Fiona enjoyed exploring and taking weekend excursions with her husband, James. She filled the 61 years she was given with gusto and was proud of her Scottish heritage. Her son, Boris, was a constant source of pride and joy.”
Fiona is survived by: her husband, James Phillips; her son, Boris; her step-sons, Cary and Colin; her sister, Jennifer Jaskowiak; sisters-in-law, Jenny Wilson and Margaret Clayton; parents, James and Sybil Wilson; nieces and nephews, Madeline, Gavin, Sophie, and Kelli; and extended family and friends across the U.S. and internationally.
Fiona was predeceased by her brother, David Wilson.
A private military funeral honors service will be held at California Central Coast Veterans Cemetery, Seaside, CA.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you consider a donation in Fiona’s memory to your local Veterans association or City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Duarte, CA.
“Her love, guidance and life lessons taught have made us better people.
Loved ones of Iris Bluford in her obituary
Her generosity has been felt by all …
We all now have another
angel watching over us.”
Another forever Fair Haven neighbor, an angel among neighbors to many, has passed, leaving behind a rich legacy of grace and love of home with heart. Iris Bluford, who lived on Parker Avenue since 1959, passed away peacefully at her home on April 2, Good Friday evening. She was 99, just a couple months shy of her 100th birthday.
Continue reading Remembrance of a Neighbor: 62-Year Fair Havenite, Iris Bluford, 99
“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.
Continue reading Getting In Step with an RFH Icon
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