Tag Archives: Fair Haven

Retro Wheel of Fair Fortune

Manning a Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair game of chance booth in the 1960s
Photo/FHFD

Reprise, because the countdown to Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair time has begun! Yes, there are games of chance at the fair, but most would agree that everyone’s a winner with the fair and its cache of memories for any area-raised kid. Spin …

“Round and round she goes; and, where she stops, nobody knows.”

That usual was the sing-song mantra echoed through the grounds of the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair back in the day. It was emanating from the guys manning the game of chance booths that still line the grounds — the loud ticking of the wheel with the spin, numbers going round and round, fingers crossed, breath held … until they stopped on that winning number. “Aaaaaand we have a WINNER!” Woohoo!

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Retro Rumson Dock Gang

The Rumson Dock gang of the late 1950s
Photo/courtesy of Alice Mansfield

A reprise … because on hot summer days everyone needs to take a trip back to the coolest of Rumson Dock days of the late 1950s in honor of summertime in the Rumson-Fair Haven area …

You’ve seen the girl from the Rumson Dock. And, behind every good postcard-famed dock girl, there’s a gang — of dedicated dock dwellers.

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Retro Fair Haven Gals’ Fair Show Boating

The heat is on and the countdown has already begun to the Fair Haven Firemen’s Fair.

And, back in the day, the 1960s day, the fire department, rather than raffling off a car, SUV or a big chunk of cash (as in Super 50/50), decided to make a boat the prized prize of the fair. And they advertised that with the help of some fire department-affiliated bathing beauties.

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Retro Rumson Island Ploppers

It’s a case of summer island plopping. Yes, that’s right. Island plopping.

That would be the more accurate term when telling the pretty common story of some Fair Haven and Rumson kids taking their own eight-hour tour of the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers and ending up settling down for some adventure on Starvation Island in Rumson on pretty much any summer day.

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Retro Neighborhood Bathing Beauty Besties

Bathing beauties of a Fair Haven neighborhood in 1965
Photo/Elaine Van Develde

A reprise in honor of beating the heat of summer days with a little backyard pool dip, dressing for the occasion, and those first, best neighborhood friends …

Back in the summer of ’65 …  the heat was on, and some pint-sized bathing beauties were set to walk the walk, if the suit and the bathing cap fit.

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River Water Quality, Fishing, Waterborne Recreation Alert

From Captain Brian Rice, Navesink River Municipalities Committee chairman, native Fair Havenite …

I am writing to inform you of a critical situation that has arisen at the Red Bank construction site located at the intersection of Oakland and Maple Avenue. During the construction activities, the main sewer line was broken, resulting in a significant sewage leakage.

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In Memoriam: Fair Haven Native, RFH ’45 Grad, George Venable Curchin, 96

Fair Haven native and Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) 1945 graduate, George Venable Curchin, more recently of Tinton Falls, died on July 8 after a short illness. It was just a week before his 97th birthday.

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