Call it a boatload of waterborne sunshine.
On the cusp of the unofficial start of summer, thoughts turn to sunny cruising on the Navesink River.
Continue reading Retro River Cruise into Summer Daze 
“Where’s your father?” my Fair Haven neighbor shouted to me from across the street some years ago a bit before Memorial Day.
“Uh, whaaat??” I answered with a chuckle. “Um, he’s in the cemetery?”
“Which one?” he asked.
A bit befuddled and more focused on taking the garbage out than my long-deceased dad’s whereabouts, I shook my head and laughed as he continued with “We can’t find him.”
Continue reading Focus: A Memorial Flag Day for Fair Haven Fire Department’s DepartedThe scene in the Rumson-Fair Haven area on Friday was flush with a little TGIF and a lot of senior prom.
Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) seniors stepped out and into classic prom times 2024 with traditional pre-prom gatherings and festivities.
Continue reading Scene Around: Digging the RFH Senior Pre-Prom Shindig It was a mission accomplished among Fair Haven police colleagues past and present.
Fair Haven residents and beyond are still fishing for an answer to an unprecedented rogue wave of a Fair Haven governing body decision to knock a volunteer out of a regional committee of his own resurrection designed to protect the Navesink River.
What was dubbed a “slap in the face” turned into some verbal fisticuffs when a wave of riled residents at Monday’s Fair Haven Borough Council meeting turned out to turn the tide of borough business by defending that volunteer, fourth-generation Fair Havenite and boat captain, Brian Rice. It became a full knock-out when the ousting became official with a contentious 3-2 vote with one abstention.
They’re riding for those who died.
Thursday marked the start of the Police Unity Tour. The tour, trumpeting the motto, “We Ride for Those Who Died,” takes hundreds of current and retired police officers from all over New Jersey on a bicycle ride to the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington DC in honor of fallen law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty. Each cycling officer rides in memory of a particular fallen one. Each year, the officers embark on the tour from a different Jersey spot. This year, they left from Mercer County.
Longtime Fair Havenite Madeline Muise passed away peacefully at her Fair Haven home, surrounded by her loving family, on May 5. She was 81.
Continue reading In Memoriam: Longtime Fair Havenite Madeline Muise, 81 
Who says you can’t go home again?
Oh, it’s been said, but clearly not by anyone who ever knew the RFH grad and famed raging skillet full of chef, author, playwright and punk rock queen of the Jews known as Rossi. Yes, that’s a mouthful of matzo ball soup with a little “L’Chaim!” on the side.
Continue reading Focus: Rumson-Raised ‘Punk Rock Queen of the Jews’ Rossi’s Homecoming “I have tried to unveil what Teddy Roosevelt said, “No words can unveil the mystery of the wilderness” by conducting numerous field observations, that have included many underwater via scuba, in estuaries/bays and in the Atlantic Ocean.” ~ Clyde MacKenzie Jr.
Fair Havenite Clyde MacKenzie Jr. passed away peacefully on April 29. He was 92.
Continue reading In Memoriam: Fair Havenite, NOAA Research Biologist, Author, Clyde MacKenzie Jr., 92 
Does the world really need another memoir?
It’s a question with which famed New York City caterer, author and playwright of The Raging Skillet known as Rossi — we’ll get to her real name later — grappled. Originally, the wild child and Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) graduate of a different kind figured the answer was a hard “Yes.” After all, when it’s all about how a gay Jewish punk rock queen plucked the jewels out of her own crown, who could resist?
After ingesting too many opinions like a bad bowl of matzo ball soup — as if there could be such a thing — it was Rossi’s healing try at third-person fiction writing of her story that opened a buried crown-induced wound leading to a full-on bleed-out. It was when she doused the wound in hydrogen peroxide’s purifying sting that its authenticity got an air-out healing in what became her second memoir — The Punk Rock Queen of the Jews.
After all, she figured, the world could really use a good dose of what it takes to pull those jewels out of the crown of a 1981 Crown Heights experience as a not-so-good Jewish girl. Who couldn’t use a story of endurance and hope simmering under a heap of authenticity?
So, the second Rossi memoir, sans recipes and the more silly, albeit unbelievable, misadventures, was launched last week with a reading in New York. Now Rossi is coming home again to the Rumson-Fair Haven area with a reading, signing and gathering of hometown friends and townies at River Road Books in Fair Haven on Thursday, May 2, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m..
Continue reading Living the Dream: Staying Authentic with Another Memoir from RFH Grad Rossi Sean Townshend Black, of West Long Branch, passed away on Sunday, April 21, from cardio-renal syndrome, a complication of his end-stage renal disease, after an 18-year struggle with diabetes, depression and drug addiction. He was 32.
Continue reading In Memoriam: Sean Townshend Black, 32 
Quality river time. It’s a rite of passage for any Rumson-Fair Haven area kid.
When the spring air hits, the banks of the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers call to kids like mythological Sirens. And they burrow themselves in the sand and tides like hermit crabs.
Continue reading Retro Little Tykes’ River Time 
You must be logged in to post a comment.