Tag Archives: Fair Haven

Local Life

Locals’ Summer: Fishy River Kid Reflection

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There’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!)

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Local Life, Opinion

Fair Remembrance: Chairman’s Footnotes

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James Acker
Photo/Kathy Robbins

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.

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Local Life

Fair Remembrance: Rides & Reunions

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On 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 …

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Local Life

R-FH Area Weekly Snapshot: Looking Back & Ahead, Weather, Tides, COVID & Pics

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Under the Fair Haven Dock perspective … Photos/Elaine Van Develde

When the rain clears and the sun shines, shadows are cast. They offer a perspective of what’s behind, ahead and sometimes the view from beneath the surface. So, that in mind, we take a look back at last week, what’s to come this week and a little peek from beneath the surface in news, features and photos from under the Fair Haven Dock.

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Local Life

Retro Night Out on a Pandemic Year Night In

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  • Fair Haven Mayor Ben Lucarelli gets dunked at Fair Haven Police Department’s National Night Out 2012 Photo/Elaine Van Develde

Fair Haven’s National Night Out 2020 turned into Night In. And it was a night in to be remembered — for nothing except the pandemic that showed no mercy and canceled another community event.

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Local Life, Opinion

Longtime Fair Havenite, Songbird Lillian Lauer: Still Hitting the High Notes at 90

Longtime Fair Havenite Lillian Lauer at 17 (left) and 90
Photos/courtesy of the Lauer family

Remember those days as a kid when you thought everyone over the age of 30 was ancient? That view from the pint-sized sprouters and adolescent awkward can offer both good and bad perspectives. Better these days, as a near senior (gulp), as it seems that those people we thought were ancient are, decades later, somehow ageless.

That’s the case with one Fair Haven mom and lead Church of the Nativity songstress: Lillian Lauer. The longtime striking blonde, French twist-coiffed Fair Havenite, who loved for decades to tend to her garden, children and lead soprano singing from the church mezzanine, turned 90 on Aug. 7. And, as the Jackson Browne song that was as popular as Lauer’s twist and song in the 70s goes, she’s “still the same … still aims high” in both song and youthful spirit.

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Local Life, Obituaries

Speaking to People: Fair Haven Icon Dorothy Breckenridge’s Final Crossing

She took her own advice. She didn’t set her foot down off that curb until the time was right. She listened. She heard. She waited for her own cue to speak. And she walked, ever so gracefully, a nod of acknowledged gratitude to each person to whom she spoke along her life’s path. She had heard herself crow with pride one last time, “CROOOOOOSSSSSS!”

Strong, stop-sign hands extended, the stalwart, kind Fair Haven woman who spent nearly 20 years “speaking” to children and crossing them safely to the other side of the road has crossed over herself at the age of 90. She was Dorothy Breckenridge.

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Local Life

Retro Summer Fair Haven Dock Days

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Summer days down by the Fair Haven Dock
Photo/Elaine Van Develde

A 2016 reprise, because it’s summertime and such close summer encounters aren’t so easy these days, but we can remember at several years’ distance and summon them back…

Summer fun in Fair Haven doesn’t get any simpler or more treasured than ending the day down by the Fair Haven Dock, sand between the toes, a few antics up the sleeve, a little seaweed in the shorts, and a crab or 20. Dock time has been a time-honored tradition for kids since, well, the dawn of time.

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Fair Haven Police and Fire Files, Police and Fire, Rumson Police and Fire Files

Volunteer Value: Surviving a Sunday Drive Accident

If you were one of the many who heard first aid, fire and police sirens blaring n the Rumson-Fair Haven area on Sunday afternoon, you probably also know by now that the accident that brought the brigade of emergency responders to the intersection of Ridge and Fair Haven roads left a Rumson couple literally a little flipped out and banged up, but alright and grateful.

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