When you’ve grown up in a small town, your memories often revolve around the comforting kind of feeling that anyone else’s mother, no matter their child-rearing differences or life circumstances, is a surrogate of your very own. That’s just how it is. The neighborhood concept.
Continue reading Remembering Joan Blake: Ode to the Fair Haven Mom, Schools’ AideThe picture of his childhood friend caught his eye. Among the cozy chatter of old friends and family, he left the conversation at the table staring, transfixed for a brief moment. The sudden silence in his own head overcame him, welled up a bit in his eyes as he moved toward the picture of his old friend that seemed to call to him.
Continue reading Focus: Rich Chandler’s Fair Haven Goodbye“It’s the honesty you apply to your playing that makes music enjoyable. The style of the music has little to do with it. It’s only honesty that makes it beautiful.”
Elvin Jones
That stark, shining, honest beauty straight from the heart is what emanated a bright light to countless people from the soul of Richard Chandler. The 60-year-old professional drummer, husband, dad, uncle and friend, who was known to never skip a beat when generously giving his love and talent, lost his years-long battle with cancer on Sunday, Oct. 4.
Continue reading His Beat Goes On: Saying Goodbye to Rich Chandler“My peace-and-quiet maker. My trusted secret keeper. My adventure sharer.
Judy Goddard
My Navesink.”
Judy Russell Goddard is in love. And the native Fair Havenite has a story to show and tell all about her lifetime love affair.
Continue reading Living the Dream: A Native Fair Havenite’s Navesink Love StoryLongtime Fair Haven resident Robert Joseph Keenan passed away unexpectedly at Riverview Medical Center on Sept. 17.
Continue reading In Memoriam: Longtime Fair Havenite Bob KeenanThe call came for neighbors, friends, paint brushes, scrapers, masks and soaring helping spirits. That call was heeded over the weekend at the Fisk Chapel AME Church in Fair Haven as many showed to get the church with historic roots dressed up in its Sunday best.
Continue reading Scene Around: Fisk Chapel’s Community Spirited Dress-UpFair Havenite, mother and wife, Olga Natsis passed away at her home on Sept. 11. She was 45.
Continue reading In Memoriam: Fair Havenite, Area Hair Stylist, Olga Natsis, 45
It’s a different kind of back-to-school week this pandemic-affected school year. That’s for sure. Students were back to school, part virtually and part in the classroom or outdoor class, in the Rumson-Fair Haven area this week. Those classic first day of school shots were plastered all over Facebook.
Continue reading Clipped Perspective: A 60s R-FH Area Back-to-School EraOur annual reprise about that first day of school and walking the rope in Fair Haven is dedicated to the memory of Pam Young, my first friend and Fair Haven neighbor. Pam passed away on July 7 at 60. The memories of her are forever etched in my heart. No one ever forgets their first friend, first neighbor. All the firsts with that special first are indelible. Thank you for knocking on my door that first day and asking if I could come out and play. I will never understand why that lady wouldn’t let us walk together on the rope … I also never forgot. Not a thing …
“But I don’t wanna walk on the rope next to her!” I cried from under my fresh-cut kindergarten bangs. “I wanna walk on the rope next to Pam!”
Pam was my neighbor. She was my best buddy. It was 1965.
Continue reading Retro First Day of School, First Friend & The RopeThere’s something fragrantly fishy about quiet river time frolicking among childhood friends down by the Fair Haven Dock.
It’s a common, soothing sight to see — a gaggle of kids clamoring around a fishing net, exploring a good catch. Of course, they throw the little fish right back in as the tide rolls out. After all, it’s the bonding down by the river that counts most.
Home. The solace of the scene. This is it for them. For many. The bright sun dancing with a simple, happy time. The sound of lapping water peppered by giggles and gasps over a few fish wiggles, seaweed and shells. The sand between the toes. The home in the heart made to keep kid memories.
Take a look … Remember? (CLICK on one photo to enlarge and scroll. Enjoy!)
On the year without the fair … We look back to a story originally published in 2015 all about just how the largest firemen’s fair in the state was run and a bit about that famous clam chowder. The details come straight from a longtime fair chairman and his son years later … RIP, Jim Acker. All’s fair ….
There was a time when there was one. Now there are three. We’re talking Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair chairmen. Yes, there was one person in charge of all that’s fair, getting it started and keeping it going. That guy was James Acker back in the day a few decades ago from the late 1960s to early ’80s. Then it was Gary Verwilt, former longtime Knollwood School teacher.
Continue reading Fair Remembrance: Chairman’s FootnotesOn the historic year without the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair, we offer a look back at some classic moments of the past five years, since R-FH Retro has been roving the grounds freezing snippets of time.
To anyone who has grown up in the Rumson-Fair Haven area, the fair is a reuniter, an end-of-summer community anchor, a generous memory giver. So, on the year without the fair, here’s a look back at the more recent past and best of moments among friends who became family in a place called home. Take the ride with us …
Continue reading Fair Remembrance: Rides & Reunions
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