Retro Rumson Island Ploppers — Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect

It’s a case of summer island plopping. Yes, that’s right. Island plopping.

That would be the more accurate term when telling the pretty common story of some Fair Haven and Rumson kids taking their own eight-hour tour of the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers and ending up settling down for some adventure on Starvation Island in Rumson on pretty much any summer day.

Heat got ya down? Not these kids! They boated right into an improvisational world of hijinks on the high seas. In other words, they just went with the river tide of adventure. The heat was always on to find simple summer fun in the 1950s (and just about any era before and after) on the river.

“In the hot days of July friends would row their 9-ft. peak from boat dock in Fair Haven to Starvation Island (would be fast going with the tide but a struggle getting back),” said Kathy Robbins, one of the 1950s Fair Haven adventurers who offered the photo to R-FH Retro. “We’d leave around 9 and get back around 5 (not sure our parents knew where we were but it was OK back then). Dug clams and caught fish, built fires to cook but really don’t remember eating them. It was a different time and a wonderful childhood.”

There was no Gilligan on this tour, just Steve Russek (left) and Peter Johnson (right). There was a skipper of some sort, but who knew? These kids weren’t thinking about it at all, just drifting, or paddling, or something … out to sea … ahem … out to river … to what they truly believed was their very own tropical isle.

There was no fear here, just a summer fever to roll with that river tide to the island they’d surely inhabit and create their own secret society. And, by the looks of things in the pic and the story Robbins tells, they settled in just fine with some other restless natives around. Bali Hai? Uh, nope. Just two guys, and company, and drifting with the river and taking whatever prizes the tide rolled in to build that not-so-secret society adventure.

OK, so the tropics it wasn’t, but island hopping and plopping for young Rumson-Fair Haven area river rats of the most informal kind left no room for fear. The river always gifted them with a protective embrace and untainted fish to fill their high seas gullets — if they ever even ate the fish after the whole cooking extravaganza. No matter. Yes, roll tide was the way to go, no matter what.

“I really miss those days of innocence,” said Robbins. “We would tell our parents we were going to the river, NO life preservers, cell phone, NO sunscreen, good friends, eating probably not yet polluted fish and clams. Great memories.”

The hopping and plopping to those river swaths of sand, mosquitoes, mishaps and rites of passage was as common as the dinner bell no one heard. Well, the “just go out and play” era of parents weren’t ringing them, either. The helicopter hover hadn’t even been invented yet.

These kids weren’t the first or the last of the island ploppers in the area. And there were other islands. Still are. Over the eras, there have been widely announced and sought-after invites to the parties hosted by older RFH grads on Gunning Island. Remember those? Ahem.

There are many river island stories for many other days …

Did you island hop and plop? Will the older RFHers please step forward and reveal your decades-ago island party misadventures?

— Photo/Kathy Robbins