A 1976 River Rats crew Photo/courtesy Marc Edelman, Facebook
Distanced sail, anyone? Some good little rats are taking to the river for a little camaraderie and sailing instruction these days. The pandemic hasn’t taken away the river, after all, and its rites of passage, like sailing.
Summers in the Rumson-Fair Haven area are rife with river-oriented activities that have become tradition. River Rats’ sailing “camp” in Fair Haven is no exception. OK, nobody was camping. It was more like a little club. Still is.
It’s been the way of growing up on the Navesink for decades — since 1955. Kids learn how to boat and do a lot of summer fun bonding in the process.
Summertime can be hectic. Not quite as much these post-quarantine pandemic days of summer, though. Most are pretty tired of alone time. Still, there’s nothing better than some an end-of-day solo time to unwind, distanced, in the fresh air … embraced by a familiar, comforting scene.
Bathing beauties of a Fair Haven neighborhood in 1965 Photo/Elaine Van Develde
This Retro Pic of the Day is being run again as an ode to priceless firsts with your first friend, your first real neighbor and the warmth of those times under the summer sun. It is a thank you tothat neighborhood kid, the tallest of us kids, with the fancy, flouncy, skirted bathing suit, the flowery bathing cap and the chutzpah to give this Fair Haven kid many firsts with questionable veracity, but always loyalty and love.
After a three-month-long daily pandemic story time on film, Fair Haven police officers are taking their final bow and exiting stage left from their brief career in pictures.
George Giffin at the first Fair Haven Day
Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Pat Topfer at the first Fair Haven Day
Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Fair Haven Day 2015 with lifetime friends Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Saturday was a tough day for Fair Havenites longing to keep tradition going, but flogged by a pandemic. It would have been the eighth actual Fair Haven Day on Saturday. The day that started it the annual Fair Haven Day tradition was the Fair Haven Centennial Celebration in 2012.
The scene at the Knollwood School Class of 1974 class trip to the dude ranch Photos/Jeanne Murphy Wnorowski
A reprise Retro Pic(s) of the Day from the Knollwood School Class of ’74to the Class of 2020 …
There’s nothing quite like a final class trip — with class clowns, friends, foes and teachers. Yes, teachers. It was a tradition for Fair Haven schools back in the 1970s. And we’re not talking Stokes.
Of course, that wouldn’t be the last for Knollwood schoolers. We’re talking a final group trip. The last leisurely day trip disguised as a class trip. They had those back then.
This particular trip was taken in 1974 to a dude ranch somewhere with Fair Haven’s Knollwood School soon-to-be grads and teachers. Where? None of the old folks in the pictures can remember. Hey, some of us don’t even remember the trip. We know there were horses, perhaps some riding and some swimming. And, apparently, there was lots of lounging and sunning. Hmmmmm …
In a move to support local businesses in the second-stage reopening of New Jersey amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fair Haven Borough Council at its Monday night meeting unanimously passed three resolutions temporarily amending ordinances and lifting associated permit fees.
The three resolutions involve restaurant/eatery outdoor dining, exercise and fitness and sidewalk business function.
The historic, unprecedented news came on Tuesday night. For the third rare time in more than a century, the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair 2020 has been cancelled.
Knollwood Class of ’74 graduation fashionistas Stephanie DeSesa, Elaine Van Develde and Wanda Becker. Photo/Sally Van Develde
Eighth graders in the Rumson-Fair Haven area are going through graduation rites of passage of a different kind right now — the COVID-19 pandemic era kind.
And what’s different about it is that there are no photos of friends clustered together, arms wrapped around one another or stiff shoulder-to-shoulder stances, signaling the end of a grade school era and beginnings. It’s definitely a missed moment or several this year.
Those ends and beginnings always involve childhood friends, some who stay with us throughout each milestone in our lives. They’re always there, if not in physical presence, in our hearts and on our minds. Those friends were markers in the milestones that are rooted in all that’s home. Our history.
So, while those friendship poses won’t be struck in the isolated pandemic Class of 2020 photos, the kinships inherent in them remain a hallmark of homegrown, hometown life.
Even if you were one of those kids that just didn’t like school all that much, the awkward, trying and exhilarating moments marked with those childhood friends are the ones that stay forever etched in minds and hearts. It’s the stuff that makes you who you are. The stuff that keeps you grounded, or up in the air — always home.
Those questionable fashion pics and fumbling adolescent moments also comprise great friendship blackmail material. Who else would have such epic fashion failure photos to go along with a string of clumsy, trouble-making memories up for grabs?
Your oldest friends. That’s who. And when the time comes to say your final goodbye, a standard eulogy by the most stable adult in the bunch just can’t compete with the memories of childhood, adolescence, teen years and adulthood and all of its ugliness, awkwardness and beauty with best friends.
Crews of grade school cronies, regardless of fashion or common sense, have something special — dating back to the beginning of graduating times.
Knollwood School Class of 2002 Photo/Elaine Van Develde
The Fair Haven Knollwood School grads have always been a styling, close-knit crew — a crew of cohorts that’s always shared many Kodak moments, in pairs, trios, cliques and all together.
Just as photography has evolved from Brownie camera to Instamatic to Polaroid, to phone camera, to full-on professional photo shoots, graduation photo ops have devolved back to single inspired family front lawn shots. That’s where the photo blitz usually began. Now it’s where it ends, too. So, some things never really change — much.
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