Raise your plastic cups and party on! It’s time for a little chill and retro toast to the impending weekend of breaking out of all the snow and taking the snap out of the cold snap with the warmth of some RFH guys of the late ’70s and early ’80s.
Continue reading Retro RFH Boys’ Wintry TGIF Toast
Snowy days — or, rather, snow avalanche of late — bring back memories of winters past and how RFHers of yesteryear found some simple fun pretty fast when the school bell didn’t ring … or it did, but there was an escape to a thrill of a hill.
Our annual reprise honoring the inspiration for R-FH Retro — my mom, Sally Van Develde — on what would have been her 103rd birthday. A birthday wish … Happy Heavenly Birthday, Mom. You remain in the hearts of so many … Besides, I won’t let them forget.
“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?” ~ Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz
For the love of home and a Fair Haven mom … that’s right.
Sometimes a birthday without her is about lighting the candles, making the wish, sustaining the simple legacy of going home, staying home with my mom, Sally Van Develde.
Today would have been her 102nd birthday. If she had lived to blow out all those candles on her cake, I wondered what she would have done. What her wish would have been.
Continue reading A Birthday Wish: Going Back Home with Mom
The following is a reprise of our Old News column, originally posted on Jan. 30, 2024, about the Fair Haven Fire Department’s Spaghetti Dinner, because tonight’s the night for the longtime annual tradition. Mangia!
People have been filling their gullets with a heaping helping of spaghetti and meatballs at the Fair Haven Fire Department’s annual spaghettini dinner for several decades. And tonight will be no exception.
It’s the stuff … ing presidents are made of — or something like that.
In honor of Presidents’ Day (week), we’re honed in on presidents of the high school class kind — not country. And there have been many class presidents at RFH, some of whom have stuck out like beacons of, well, zaniness. Call them fearless fun leaders.
Continue reading Retro RFH Class Prez Stuff
It’s Presidents’ Day, officially Washington’s Birthday. So, it seemed only appropriate to continue in that theme with retro RFH photos — class presidents, their teams and even the top administrator.
Why not? If the day fits … And, lest we forget that back in the 1970s, there was a bicentennial for the U.S.A. going on. And there was much making of the year in the theme of RFH festivities and the yearbook.
The RFH Class of ’76, in fact, reprised its own ode to our first president, George Washington, with a mock crossing of, shall we say, McCarter Pond?
Once upon a time, when the cold snap started, so did the antics in the library at RFH. And there to keep everyone in line and keep up one step, or a chair, ahead of the antsy foul-weather pranksters were those library aides.
The year was 1974 and the top hits were The Way We Were and Seasons in the Sun. Ironic …
And back in that year, the seniors at RFH had plenty of joy and fun and some seasons out of the sun. That was OK, though, because they had they had the Senior Commons for those chilly, wintry dank days. It was just the way they were — literally sinking into the groove, known as the groovy floor, in the lounge.
A little cheer in a reprise all about simple fun to be had in foul weather lounging and an antic or a few at RFH …
Some moments are meant for just lounging … like this persistent foul, frigid weather. Yes, lounging, even if those snippets of indoor time at RFH are inside a far less cozy, yet exclusive, special high school nook like the junior, as opposed to upper crust senior, lounge.
Continue reading Retro RFH Foul Weather Junior ‘Lounging’
Yes, we are in the throes of winter and its big chill and freeze-out. After lots of snow and ice, the sun has come out this week and made the cold sting just a little softer.
With that heap of white stuff turning into slippery slopes of solid ice, minds might be transported in time to RFH days when there was a small group of enthusiasts that loved the snow and took to the slick slopes regularly — the now defunct RFH Ski Club.
Continue reading Retro RFH Ski Clubbing Coolness
It’s not as if most any adventurous kid wouldn’t try a little skating on thin ice in more ways than one. But, the ice was definitely thick enough at McCarter Pond in Fair Haven this one January day in 2015.
As people flocked to the Navesink River, which hasn’t been frozen enough to even walk on for years, over the weekend, the usual Rumson and Fair Haven spots were still prime for some solid, frozen adventuring. So, we’re taking you back just more than a decade to an iconic spot with some longtime Fair Haven adventurers — or something like that.
Continue reading Retro Skate on Thick Ice
A reprise from February of 2017 in honor of the next snowfall due today …
With the onslaught of icy snow lately and the freeze over, there’s been a lot of chatter about snow days and how to get creatively constructive with the white stuff.
Well, in the 1970s, a few R-FH area kids took their creativity farther than most would be allowed to these days. And that chatter could have well been the chattering of teeth in the freezing weather — more like in the comfort of some kids’ self-built ice hut, or igloo. Woohoo!
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