So, a karate kid, a baseball player, a cop, two witches, a vampire and a boxer walk onto a school stage …
That means only one thing. It’s Halloween and it’s school pageant time — or whatever they call it. Yes, it’s that time when all the little guys and ghouls in school get dressed up and parade through the classroom, down the hall and into the auditorium for a spooky show of Halloween spirit.
And there’s nothing quite like a costume party full of festive, fun fiends who take full advantage of the season to say the devil made them do it when it comes to tricks and the sometimes questionable treat of their disguises.
The following opinion piece on Halloween through the generations in Fair Haven was originally published in 2015. It is reprised annually …
Before the parade passes by, this kid from Fair Haven has some parading memories on which to reflect. Remember this scene?
It’s a longstanding tradition — the Fair Haven Halloween Parade.
I remember it well — from my first parade trek back in the late 1960s to the ’70s, 80s, 90s and now.
It all started at age 7 with a wish to be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. I’ve noticed a few in more recent years and the green-eyed jealousy monster of a near senior has reared its head. But I digress … That little dress-up fantasy of the 60s of mine was foiled when my mother couldn’t get the gingham outfit together, my pigtails were not so poised for the silver screen look and my sister refused to crawl down Hance Road as Toto.
I guess it was bad enough that from the age of 3, she was forced by this pint-sized dominatrix 5-year-old Dorothy to crawl on a makeshift Funk and Wagnall’s encyclopedia Yellow Brick Road to Oz in the living room. The neighbors never quite got over it, either.
Former longtime Fair Havenite LaVanche Eleanor Walker Weber, known to one and all as “Lee”, passed away peacefully on Monday, Sept. 23, at home with her children by her side. She was 97.
A classic reprise originally posted in 2017 and now reprised every year in celebration of that ever so priceless school picture day. This one takes us back to a Fair Haven kindergarten class of 1955 at Knollwood School. At one time or another, three different schools housed kindergarten classes in Fair Haven. The pictures? Well, there was always that group shot, no matter where, that captured some priceless looks, fashion and hairdos.
School bells are ringing. Class is in session. Back-to-school mode is still kicking in. Back-to-school nights have welcomed parents back to the school halls. And, for some, it’s about taking a walk back to their own school days in the same place — like Knollwood School.
Our annual back-to-school reprise all about those first days of school along with some who, what, when and boogeyman parts … Take this little trip back in time with us to remember Fair Haven’s kindergarten days of yesteryear …
It was a real first and last class act of 1965 — the kindergarten class that was the last to get its first lessons learned in school at what was the Youth Center in Fair Haven. You know. It’s the police station now.
Back in the day — OK, waaaaay back in the day — there was a third school in Fair Haven for kindergarten, you see. It was the Youth Center. That was also way before preschool. People now know it better as the Fair Haven Police Station and by its newly adopted name that hasn’t quite caught on yet, and may never for “older” folks still in town — Fair Haven Community Center. Phooey to that. Some things just need to keep a name for nostalgic purposes alone. Besides, the youth part soothes us old codgers.
That and it’s just a matter of what sounds like home to you. For instance, my very nice grandmother, a Matawan native, was pretty hostile about the “new” Aberdeen split and name. Paid it no mind. And if forced, said it with “blah, blah, blah” contempt. Back to the Community Center … There, I said it.
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