New Year cheers to good friends!

These RFH guys … If there’s something to celebrate, they’re commandeering the toast — and peppering it with a little mayhem. Or a lot.

Not a frown in the bunch. Ever. Just a fiendish gleam in the eyes. From the time they were kids, every play date among these RFH Class of ’78 hooligans was laced with mischievous grins and giggles. And they’re still playing. We saw a flashback of this crew, plus a few not in this flash forward to 2016, and we’re thinking, or knowing, they’re still the same.

It was holiday time in this regrouping of dastardly dudes. Maybe not an actual New Year toast, but it was around that time and the spirit suited the holiday, so they went with it and so did we. The table was set for the scene, after all — and dismantled. Oh, there was another photo — table set and boys behaving, sort of. Then this happened ….

What “this” is, exactly, is not a certainty, but knowing them, no good and a lot of good at “5 p.m. somewhere” was enough to rearrange the dinner table, empty some bottles, hoot and holler, and, apparently, knight one compadre “King of the Bowl Hat.”

Just like the photo of these guys as teens, it just makes the heart smile. That’s what friendships that endure generations do.

So, cheers to childhood friends! This new year they are without one, but glasses will always be raised for all and the smiles will stay plastered on their faces — literally.

Now, what do you think was really going on here? Joke? Oh, and what was in that bowl before it ended up as Chris Wood’s hat? Know the rest of this crew? They’re still hanging around the towns …

• Retro RFH Tower Players’ Fall Play Time
• In Memoriam: Little Silver-Raised Red Bank High School ’56 Grad, Ed Apy, 88
• Scene Around: RFH Tower Players’ Dressed & Set for ‘Nutcracker’
• Police Report: $2.2K Theft, Aggravated Assault, Weapons Possession, Terroristic Threats, Drug Possession, Fugitive from Justice, DWI, Disorderly, Criminal Mischief
• In Memoriam: Red Bank-Raised Longtime Rumsonite Ted Leddy, 87