Fair Havenites rallied recently to cheer 99- year-old resident and World War II and Korean War veteran Luis Antonio Ortiz on to his 100th birthday, wishing that he “heal quickly and celebrate his birthday at home. Get well, Sir!” resident Katy Badt Frissora said on Facebook on July 7. The “international executive, loving father, grandfather, and great-grandfather” passed away on July 12, just shy of the July 25 milestone.
Continue reading In Memorium: Fair Havenite Luis Ortiz, WW II & Korean War Vet, 99Tag Archives: Fair Haven
Retro Close River Rat Encounters
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.
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Simple Summer: Fair Haven Dock Sunset Solace
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.
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Retro Neighborhood Kids: Bathing in the Beauty of Firsts
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 to that 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.
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A Happy 98th Birthday Tribute to a Fair Haven Icon: Ray Taylor
Photos/Elaine Van Develde
Fair Haven’s iconic Ray Taylor is two years shy of a centenarian today. That means he’s just about as old as his hometown. It also means that he has a cache swelling with love, memories and future plans for the place he has called home for longer than most.
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In Memorium: Former Fair Havenite, Teacher, Arlene Measley
Former Fair Havenite, wife, mom and teacher, Arlene Measley, passed away quietly on Friday morning, June 19, at her Little Silver home.
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Scene Around: Copping COVID Storytime Bloopers
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.
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Retro Fair Haven Day with Iconic Fair Havenites
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.
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Retro Eighth Grade Class Tripping
Photos/Jeanne Murphy Wnorowski
A reprise Retro Pic(s) of the Day from the Knollwood School Class of ’74 to 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 …
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Fair Haven: Council Approves Phase 2 COVID Reopening Measures to Assist Local Businesses
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.
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A Covid-19 Era Break in Tradition: Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair Cancelled
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.
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Retro Forever Fair Haven Eighth Grade Friendship Snapshot
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.
Continue reading Retro Forever Fair Haven Eighth Grade Friendship Snapshot
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