Retro Fair Haven Day with Iconic Fair Havenites

It’s time for the new Fair Haven Day tradition for the 14th time, well, 13th, if you discount the pandemic year. An in its 14th year, Fair Haven Day will celebrate America’s 250 in tandem at the usual place, Fair Haven Fields, on Saturday.

Fair Haven Day was borne out of the 2012 Fair Haven Centennial Celebration. So, there’s lots to celebrate, including those Fair Havenites who are now gone, but helped make the borough the community it is and strives to continue to be. This is how they’re doing it this year …

Yes, starting 14 years ago, generations of Fair Havenites and Rumsonites gathered in Fair Haven Fields to celebrate 100 years of Fair Haven being Fair Haven, a place that many have called home and considered home forever. Because of its success, residents wanted an annual Fair Haven Day. They got it.

Since the centennial, the borough has lost some of its longtime residents who everyone knew in one capacity or another. They were some of the true faces of Fair Haven.

So, the Retro Pic(s) of the Day honors two of those people who were there on the first Fair Haven Day, proud longtime Fair Havenites and icons: Life member of the Fair Haven Fire Department’s Ladies Auxiliary, Pat Topfer; and ever-popular RFH science and dance teacher extraordinaire, George Giffin. It also honors Fair Haven-raised Ben Hamilton, who, as an adult, also made Fair Haven his home and forever haven.

There are more who have passed since then, though the three pictured here were icons of a special kind — the hometown kind, for different, simple reasons.

Pat Topfer had come to Fair Haven decades ago to raise her family. She became a longtime member of the Ladies’ Auxiliary, a regular in the Acme and just an all-around ray of Fair Haven sunshine. Pat was fun. She was a bundle of Fair Haven love and enthusiasm. And she donned a very sparkly celebratory outfit on the centennial, to boot, to show everyone how it’s done.

What more could anyone say about RFH teacher and dancer extraordinaire George Giffin (Giff) except that he, always equipped with a song, some dance moves and humorous advice, was the epitome of an icon of the teaching kind. He, too, exuded some serious Fair Haven and RFH love. And there was always a dance, a giggle and few words to heed to go with it. Last I saw George Giffin, he told me “When you get that beat, you gotta moooooove your feet!” Dance on, Giff!

Let’s not forget his wife, Marcia, a former longtime English teacher at Knollwood School, who’s still with us and just might be spotted on the Fields on Saturday. Hmmmm … We know the couple’s daughter, Debbie Giffin Schluter, will be there. She’s been running with that icon torch she’s been passed for some time.

And then, as iconic Fair Havenites who have passed goes, there was Ben Hamilton. A kind guy who lived on and loved the water, Ben was always around town offering a serene smile, nod, gentile way and some sunset views to share. He loved waterborne sports and could almost always be seen as a fixture on the Navesink River by his house. Riding into the sunset on the water was Ben’s signature joy. He imparted that joy to many.

Each was special in his or her very own way. So, once again, we look back at them representing on the day of their Fair Haven, true examples of home love rolled into one being, and we say Rest in Peace.

You will always be a part of the place you called home. And we all know, “There’s no place like home” and this is no Oz.