Retro RFH Boys’ Wintry TGIF Toast

RFH guys spread winter cheer circa 1970s
Photo/courtesy of George Day

Raise your plastic cups and party on! It’s time for a little chill and retro toast to the impending weekend of breaking out of all the snow and taking the snap out of the cold snap with the warmth of some RFH guys of the late ’70s and early ’80s.

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Retro RFH Snow Day Hill Thrill

Snow day fun for RFHers in the 1970s. Photo/George Day
Snow day fun for RFHers in the 1970s.
Photo/George Day

Snowy days — or, rather, snow avalanche of late — bring back memories of winters past and how RFHers of yesteryear found some simple fun pretty fast when the school bell didn’t ring … or it did, but there was an escape to a thrill of a hill.

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A Birthday Wish: Going Back Home with Mom

Our annual reprise honoring the inspiration for R-FH Retro — my mom, Sally Van Develde — on what would have been her 103rd birthday. A birthday wish … Happy Heavenly Birthday, Mom. You remain in the hearts of so many … Besides, I won’t let them forget.

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?” ~ Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

For the love of home and a Fair Haven mom … that’s right.

Sometimes a birthday without her is about lighting the candles, making the wish, sustaining the simple legacy of going home, staying home with my mom, Sally Van Develde.

Today would have been her 102nd birthday. If she had lived to blow out all those candles on her cake, I wondered what she would have done. What her wish would have been.

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Prosecutor: Area Teacher/Coach Gets 51/2 Years for Sexual Assault of Student

A 36-year-old Middletown High School North teacher and girls’ basketball coach has been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in state prison for engaging in a sexual relationship with one of his students, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago announced on Tuesday.

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In Memoriam: Longtime Rumsonite, ‘Queen of Social Intoxication,’ Diane Dey, 95

Diane M. Dey

Longtime Rumsonite Diane Merrall Dey, 95, more recently of Atlantic Highlands, “received her angel wings on Saturday evening, Feb. 7. She departed peacefully at home, in the presence of her loving daughter, Merrall, while the Commendation of the Dying was invoked by Father Hank Hilton.”

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Old News: Stirring the Pot at the Spaghetti Dinner

The following is a reprise of our Old News column, originally posted on Jan. 30, 2024, about the Fair Haven Fire Department’s Spaghetti Dinner, because tonight’s the night for the longtime annual tradition. Mangia!

People have been filling their gullets with a heaping helping of spaghetti and meatballs at the Fair Haven Fire Department’s annual spaghettini dinner for several decades. And tonight will be no exception.

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