Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • s p r i n g 2 0 1 4 66 HOME PORT Touched by the Trees by Frank Finale T rees have become a touchstone for certain events in my life. When I felt confused about something as a child, I would climb the old elm tree near my house and feel a connection and kinship with it. I'd nestle in its leafy limbs and be lifted into another world. When I was eight years old, I was told that my mother, who was thirty-seven and had been ill for a long time, had just died in the Coney Island Hospital. Sadly, I turned to this elm for strength and silent guidance. I wondered how it could survive the snows of winter all boney and bare, then slowly come alive again in spring filled with leaves and birds. I was astonished at how part of it was rooted deep in the ground, unseen, and yet another part reached for the sun and stars. As I walked around dazed, I found myself in Marine Park, which was just a block away from my house. I climbed one of the trees there and stayed for what seemed like an hour. Hidden among its leaves, I gathered my thoughts and tried to make sense of what was happening. The tree cradled my grief. As I climbed down and jumped onto the soft grass below, I felt more ready to deal with my new life, motherless. In high school, trees sometimes became my personal calendar. Walking home from my track practice in April on a yellow carpet of droppings from the maple trees, I would take my cue. When the buds unfurled into leaves, it would be time for the main track event of the year—the Penn Relays. Make each practice count, they seemed to remind me. Many of these trees are probably no longer there. However, I am sure that their roots are still deeply buried underground, as are mine. After my high school graduation, my track scholarship took me to Ohio State University. There, under a young willow tree, I read E.B. White's Charlotte's Web for a children's literature course. That willow tree and the newly discovered book were an underlying influence on my own writings about nature. When I graduated from college, I found myself moving to New Jersey to live near relatives. Moving to the Jersey Shore helped me to achieve my dream of co-existing with nature. Here there was fresh air to breathe, the ocean and its beaches to reflect upon, and clear, starry skies at night. Also, there were so many differ- ent kinds of birds, plants, and trees to appreciate. Just a few weeks ago, I was looking out the back window trying to figure out what animal had made the tracks in the newly fallen snow. It turned out to be a neighbor's cat that frequented the area. As the snow melted, the tracks would disappear. The sun's rays strike more directly, warming the earth and filling the cups of blue crocuses springing forth from it. These first warm days of spring fill the air with the woodsy scent of earth and vegetation. Soon the lion- faces of pansies will greet me in my front yard and for- sythia bushes across the street will send forth a sun-yellow Instagram of spring. The tall, feathery phragmites of the wetlands of Barnegat Bay come alive again with water birds, insect larvae, and frogs. In early spring, the high-pitched mating calls of the peepers can be deafening. Even though it's difficult to spot these tiny frogs, which usually hide underneath the mats of water grasses, one cannot miss their chorus of calls filling the reeds at dusk. To add to this show, the snowy-white egrets continue their fishing in the darkening marshes. Each spring, these sights and sounds are a reminder of my former days as a fourth grade teacher. In our environ- mental studies of New Jersey, I often took my classes on field trips to the beaches and state parks: Island Beach, Allaire, Double Trouble, and Poricy Fossil Park. Some of these trips were supple- mented with short excursions around our own school grounds. We recorded and sketched in our nature journals the things we didn't ordinarily stop to focus on…that pine tree, its needles and cones, the shapes, colors, textures of bark, the life in or about it, the sounds of the breeze through the branches, and the scent of the pines. The children brought back natural souvenirs of their findings. They were encouraged to put together a nature booklet of their items. We pressed leaves between sheets of waxed paper and attached them to individual sheets of colored construction paper to form booklets. They then used our tree reference books to write their own paragraphs about each leaf. We made Plaster of Paris molds of some of these items to represent fossils. They also used plain newsprint paper and crayons to make colorful rubbings of leaves, tree bark, and some bird feathers as art projects. I wonder how all this could be accomplished by present teachers with today's New Jersey mandatory core curricu- lum standards and testing. Now that I am retired, I reflect on my past; but I have since developed an even deeper appreciation for the beauty of trees in their transformations through the seasons, their life giving breath a part of me. u Frank Finale is the author of the books "To The Shore Once More, Volumes I & II" and "A Gull's Story, Parts 1, 2, and 3" as well as coeditor of the anthologies "Under A Gull's Wing" and "The Poets of New Jersey." Mr. Finale will be meeting readers and signing books at numerous events this season. Please refer to pages 8-9 for more information about his books and appearances. PaweA Aniszewski/iStock/Thinkstock

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