An RFH Halloween ghostly gaggle of the 1970s Photo/George Day
A reprise from 2017, just because … BOO!
Scary season has set in … in more ways than one.
People in the Rumson-Fair Haven area have been haunting up their homes, crafting costumes and getting into the spirit. So, why not add a little extra retro spooking from RFH students of the past?
BOO who or what? It was all in the haunt for RFHers back in the 1970s. They started getting the Halloween party going early on and ended up with a pretty festive feast of ghouls on the grounds of the high school and, yes, beyond.
Woolworth’s Halloween costume ad of 1975/Red Bank Register
Living in the past. Sometimes you just have to live a little … in the past. It’s an eye-opening, or -stabbing, thing. Nothing wrong with a clearer view or jab.
Yet, when someone is told they’re living in the past, it’s usually considered somewhat of an insult. It implies that the person is paralyzed, incapable of moving forward. Not always true, especially when it comes to old news.
Witchy best pals in Rumson on Halloween 2014 Photo/Elaine Van Develde
A Halloween reprise, just because it’s an all-time favorite photo of costumed Rumson besties …
Are you a good witch or a bad witch? Which witch is which? Either way, or both, the rain never falls on some of the best of times between best buddies. And it all starts when they’re growing up together like these two little witches with lots of magical moments ahead.
Lunch time for Halloween trick-or-treaters at RFH circa 1977 Photo/George Day
Well, rainy Halloween week’s days like today and hangin’ in the Senior Commons at RFH were just about as cool as The Carpenters’ hit Rainy Days and Mondays song in the 1970s. It didn’t have to be on Monday, though. And nothing got RFHers down when it came to Halloween fun and lounging. The fun just stayed inside and all RFH cozy-like.
It’s also not every day that you get the chance to “cop a squat” in the RFH senior lounge to ingest the spirit, or spirits, of the day in the company of Harpo and Groucho Marx.
RFH Halloween of 1977 with a gaggle of girls Photo/George Day
Reprise … Just because it’s that time of the year and it’s a classic shot …
Some bunny got dressed for RFH Halloween 1977 — or a few bunnies and other assorted suspicious characters, that is.
The Halloween spirit was in the air, that’s for sure. And this senior gaggle of girls embodied it. From controversial, yet timely and popular, Playboy bunny costumes, to Raggedy Ann, a ghost, a cat, a gypsy and whatever else, they were parading and pleased with their choices.
Then they benched themselves for a little haunting respite and pose. But, surely, knowing this crew, there was some mischievous haunting to come. They weren’t done.
The following opinion piece on Halloween through the generations in Fair Haven was originally published in 2015. It is reprised annually …
The Fair Haven Halloween Parade passed by last weekend. Missed it! But, as always, this senior-aged (OUCH) kid from Fair Haven has some parading memories on which to reflect. Remember this scene?
It’s a longstanding tradition — the Fair Haven Halloween Parade.
I remember it well — from my first parade trek back in the late 1960s to the ’70s, 80s, 90s and now.
It all started at age 7 with a wish to be Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. I’ve noticed a few in more recent years and the green-eyed jealousy monster of a near senior has reared its head. But I digress … That little dress-up fantasy of the 60s of mine was foiled when my mother couldn’t get the gingham outfit together, my pigtails were not so poised for the silver screen look and my sister refused to crawl down Hance Road as Toto.
I guess it was bad enough that from the age of 3, she was forced by this pint-sized dominatrix 5-year-old Dorothy to crawl on a makeshift Funk and Wagnall’s encyclopedia Yellow Brick Road to Oz in the living room. The neighbors never quite got over it, either.
Halloween in Fair Haven’s Sickles School in 1985 Photo/Kathy Robbins
It’s cool to be a ghoul in school, right?
Wait. Is that a lobster raising its claw to answer the teacher? Why, yes, it is. The teacher is unfazed. But the lesson? Well, it seems that this day in a Fair Haven 1980s classroom is all about costumes and little to nothing about reading, writing and ‘rithmetic.
Halloween parading in Sickles School in Fair Haven in the 1980s Photo/Kathy Robbins
So, a karate kid, a baseball player, a cop, two witches, a vampire and a boxer walk onto a school stage …
That means only one thing. It’s Halloween season and that means that soon it will be school pageant time — or whatever they call it. Yes, it’s that time when all the little guys and ghouls in school get dressed up and parade through the classroom, down the hall and into the auditorium for a spooky show of Halloween spirit — or something like that. Nowadays there’s a Halloween egg hunt in the area towns. That’s something that still has this 1960s and ’70s kid a bit baffled. But, hey, whatever floats your Halloween gondola, Jack-O-Lantern or whatever. It’s still a fun time of year at school.
And there’s nothing quite like a costume party full of festive, fun fiends who take full advantage of the season to say the devil made them do it when it comes to tricks and the sometimes questionable treat of their disguises.
Continue reading Retro RFH Ghostly Halloween Haunting 
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