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Local Life

Retro Stokes Tripping

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A trip back in time to Stokes State Forrest with the sixth graders of Knollwood in the early 1970s. Photo/Peter Mauger
A trip back in time to Stokes State Forrest with the sixth graders of Knollwood in the early 1970s.
Photo/Peter Mauger

Post-Memorial Day week is what used to be a longtime tradition of Fair Haven sixth graders taking that trip to Stokes State Forrest. The time of the year has since been switched to fall. So, in honor of the original timing of this rite-of-passage trip to Stokes, we, again, invite you to take a trip back with us. Remember?

It’s that time of the year when Fair Haven schools tradition used to take hold and all good Knollwood sixth graders packed it in and went on their trip to Stokes State Forrest. The buses rolled out of town right after Memorial Day. It’s now been more than 50 years’ worth of Stokes adventuring. Wow.

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Local Life

Retro River Rats’ Rite of Summer Passage

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A 1976 River Rats crew Photo/courtesy Marc Edelman, Facebook

Call it a ratty reprise ode to summertime …

Summers in the Rumson-Fair Haven area are rife with river-oriented activities that have become tradition.

River Rats’ sailing “camp” is no exception. OK, nobody was camping per se. It was more like a little club. Still is. In fact, it’s that time of the year when kids start signing up for summer River Rats fun. In fact, it’s that time — to sign up for the Rats season.

It’s been a sort of rite of living on the Navesink passage for decades — since 1955. Kids learn how to boat and do a lot of summer fun bonding in the process.

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Local Life, Opinion

Retro RFH Teacher-Administrator Cool at School Moment

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A look back at RFH science teacher James Parker and Assistant Superintendent Donald Trotter Photo/George Day
A look back at RFH science teacher James Parker and
Assistant Superintendent Donald Trotter
Photo/George Day

A reprise, originally posted in 2015, because a new RFH superintendent has reported to the office … 

RFH has a new superintendent. He’s reported to the office and has walked those hallowed halls of good ol’ RFH.

And with thoughts of welcoming the new, the old and that teacher-administrator rapport comes to mind. Back in the day, or the ’70s at least, there were those administrators who weren’t just a Charlie Brown teacher’s voice cawing over the ol’ daydreaming student’s non-thought process. Some, or one in particular, are remembered as a real education innovators.

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Local Life

Retro RFH Mathematical Teaching Moments

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RFH math teachers of the 1970s
Photo/RFH Yearbook

It all adds up. Good teachers plus intriguing personalities equals motivated, successful students. And, no matter how you put the equation together at RFH, there was no zero involved when it came to high school math teachers.

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Local Life, Opinion

Retro RFH English Teacher Appreciation

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RFH English teachers of the 1970s
Photo/RFH yearbook

What would Teacher Appreciation Day be without a little ode to those who unwittingly set a writer on her twisted path to write — about them?

They are the English teachers at RFH. Back in the 1970s, they comprised quite the crew of educators. They taught us how to communicate more effectively. They chided us for using improper grammar. They expected better when they knew we were capable of the best. They glommed onto the small details that mattered in stringing a better sentence together with the peskiness of a dangling participle.

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Local Life

Retro RFH Science of Teaching

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RFH science teachers of the 1970s
Photo/RFH Yearbook

A reprise from 2022, because it’s Teacher Appreciation Week and not enough people read it the first time …

Science! It was truly poetry in motion at RFH, just like the 1980s song by Thomas Dolby. And, no, no teacher blinded anyone with science at RFH, more like made the students see the subject — and more clearly.

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Local Life

Retro RFH Boys’ Jump for Home Plate

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RFH boys play ball in the 1970s
Photo/George Day

Play ball!

That’s just what these RFH boys of the 1970s did, and with frequency. There was no major organization or uniforms involved in their free time ball games. It was just a few RFH guys, a ball, some mitts, bats, topsiders and Adidas instead of cleats, some groovin’ 70s clothes and a lot of fun.

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