Summertime with RFH buddies at the beach Photo/courtesy of Paul Hughes
It’s a summertime Retro Pic of the Day that just had to be seen again — from another view …
Sometimes a picture is really worth a million … dollar pyramid pose. But it’s really the backstory that gets the mind churning an the pyramid crumbling. Hey, these guys could easily fall for (or on) one another. It was a a close encounter time, after all. Oh, the horror … not so much. Though things can turn into a brand of happy horrific with a bunch of RFH boys on the beach.
A 1976 River Rats crew Photo/courtesy Marc Edelman, Facebook
Distanced sail, anyone? Some good little rats are taking to the river for a little camaraderie and sailing instruction these days. The pandemic hasn’t taken away the river, after all, and its rites of passage, like sailing.
Summers in the Rumson-Fair Haven area are rife with river-oriented activities that have become tradition. River Rats’ sailing “camp” in Fair Haven is no exception. OK, nobody was camping. It was more like a little club. Still is.
It’s been the way of growing up on the Navesink for decades — since 1955. Kids learn how to boat and do a lot of summer fun bonding in the process.
With RFHers’ graduation, sentimentality has set in. It’s that milestone summer of senior year … There’s nothing like a few best buds, a graduation summer, a message of forever friendship and the bridge — RFHers’ iconic cement billboard of sorts left over from the McCarter estate in Rumson.
So, to pay tribute to both buds and the bridge, the Retro Pic of the Day offers a glimpse of both in a milestone moment of friends paying homage to one another by painting the bridge way back in time.
With the new pandemic the edict from NJ Gov. Phil Murphy for people to now wear masks otdoors, we’re thinking … it’s pretty interesting to ponder how that may work on the nude beach at Sandy Hook. Bathing suits optional. Masks, not so much … Hey, whatever works and floats your sun bathing and swimming gondola …
There are many more beach days ahead, masked or unmasked. Suits or not There was a time, though, that the clothing optional part was a cause for which a large contingent of RFH nude beachgoers fought — gloves on. In fact, it was taken to the famed Rumson McCarter bridge for a bit of campaigning. Everyone knows how that went.
The following piece was originally posted on July 8, 2015. It’s just the right time for a reprise. As we dive into summer season and word comes that the lights have gone out on Broadway for the rest of 2020, we thought it only fitting to remember good summer times in a premier summer theaterintheRumson-Fair Haven area. Once upon a time, there was a special little creative niche in Rumson … Take a trip back with us to simple summers and magical, theatrical times …
Remember The Barn Theater in Rumson?
Well, if you don’t, you missed out and are probably significantly younger than those who do and didn’t — miss out, that is.
It’s a plus if you’re that young. But, it’s definitely a factor in the minus category if you didn’t work, play or get entertained there.
It was a community theater that cast hundreds, maybe thousands, from the area, including many Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School (RFH) students.
The building is still there, only a few blocks away from the high school on Avenue of Two Rivers near the intersection at Ridge Road. The reason why it was called The Barn was, well, because it was an old barn, gutted (if there is such a thing with a barn) and converted into a small arena-type stage theater, with the stage at floor level and risers around it as seats, though not all the way around.
You get the picture. Now, here’s what’s behind the place’s show folk and shows …
Bathing beauties of a Fair Haven neighborhood in 1965 Photo/Elaine Van Develde
This Retro Pic of the Day is being run again as an ode to priceless firsts with your first friend, your first real neighbor and the warmth of those times under the summer sun. It is a thank you tothat neighborhood kid, the tallest of us kids, with the fancy, flouncy, skirted bathing suit, the flowery bathing cap and the chutzpah to give this Fair Haven kid many firsts with questionable veracity, but always loyalty and love.
RFH girls’ ride into the summer of ’78 … Stephanie DeSesa, Elaine Van Develde, Debbie Humbert and Daryl Cooper Ley Photo/Elaine Van Develde
There’s nothing quite like a summer drive in a classic car with the top down. So, we’re re-running this piece just because the sun needs to shine on friendships and good times like these. There’s nothing quite as warm. Put the top down and take a drive back with us again …
The drive is all the better if it’s made with best friends. So, as a continuing ode to summer fun of the past at the hands of RFH teens, the Retro Pic of the Day encapsulates the whole idea — best friends, a cool ride and warm memories.
RFH Class of ’78 graduation Photo/courtesy of Nancy Welchel
The last time capped and gowned RFH grads were lining the street was more than four decades ago when the Class of ’78 graduated on the front lawn of the high school.
George Giffin at the first Fair Haven Day
Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Pat Topfer at the first Fair Haven Day
Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Fair Haven Day 2015 with lifetime friends Photo/Elaine Van Develde
Saturday was a tough day for Fair Havenites longing to keep tradition going, but flogged by a pandemic. It would have been the eighth actual Fair Haven Day on Saturday. The day that started it the annual Fair Haven Day tradition was the Fair Haven Centennial Celebration in 2012.
The scene at the Knollwood School Class of 1974 class trip to the dude ranch Photos/Jeanne Murphy Wnorowski
A reprise Retro Pic(s) of the Day from the Knollwood School Class of ’74to the Class of 2020 …
There’s nothing quite like a final class trip — with class clowns, friends, foes and teachers. Yes, teachers. It was a tradition for Fair Haven schools back in the 1970s. And we’re not talking Stokes.
Of course, that wouldn’t be the last for Knollwood schoolers. We’re talking a final group trip. The last leisurely day trip disguised as a class trip. They had those back then.
This particular trip was taken in 1974 to a dude ranch somewhere with Fair Haven’s Knollwood School soon-to-be grads and teachers. Where? None of the old folks in the pictures can remember. Hey, some of us don’t even remember the trip. We know there were horses, perhaps some riding and some swimming. And, apparently, there was lots of lounging and sunning. Hmmmmm …
Knollwood Class of ’74 graduation fashionistas Stephanie DeSesa, Elaine Van Develde and Wanda Becker. Photo/Sally Van Develde
Eighth graders in the Rumson-Fair Haven area are going through graduation rites of passage of a different kind right now — the COVID-19 pandemic era kind.
And what’s different about it is that there are no photos of friends clustered together, arms wrapped around one another or stiff shoulder-to-shoulder stances, signaling the end of a grade school era and beginnings. It’s definitely a missed moment or several this year.
Those ends and beginnings always involve childhood friends, some who stay with us throughout each milestone in our lives. They’re always there, if not in physical presence, in our hearts and on our minds. Those friends were markers in the milestones that are rooted in all that’s home. Our history.
So, while those friendship poses won’t be struck in the isolated pandemic Class of 2020 photos, the kinships inherent in them remain a hallmark of homegrown, hometown life.
Even if you were one of those kids that just didn’t like school all that much, the awkward, trying and exhilarating moments marked with those childhood friends are the ones that stay forever etched in minds and hearts. It’s the stuff that makes you who you are. The stuff that keeps you grounded, or up in the air — always home.
Those questionable fashion pics and fumbling adolescent moments also comprise great friendship blackmail material. Who else would have such epic fashion failure photos to go along with a string of clumsy, trouble-making memories up for grabs?
Your oldest friends. That’s who. And when the time comes to say your final goodbye, a standard eulogy by the most stable adult in the bunch just can’t compete with the memories of childhood, adolescence, teen years and adulthood and all of its ugliness, awkwardness and beauty with best friends.
Crews of grade school cronies, regardless of fashion or common sense, have something special — dating back to the beginning of graduating times.
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