Jersey Shore Magazine

j e r s e y s h o r e • F A L L / H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 6 53 Poet at Twilight "Love Is What's in the Room with You" by Christine Menapace But while Finale may not appear overly changed today, he is. Most notably, his wife of thirty-seven years passed away five years ago. Of the three sons they raised together, one is estranged from the family, one has two children, and one is fighting cancer yet again. He is a grandfather. He is even a great-grandfather. He is easily distracted by random inter- net searches. "I searched for about an hour on Patty Hearst when I was supposed to be writing," he sighs. "I waste a lot of time." He is also keenly aware of his mortality, a theme that never entered continued on page 54 t seventy-four, acclaimed Jersey Shore writer Frank Finale appears as active and robust as when we first met thirteen years ago. At the time, he had just published the second volume of To The Shore Once More, a collection of poems and essays along with works of art by area artists depicting his lifelong romance with the Jersey Shore. His wife, Barbara, was asleep in the next room, and a cat named Peggy Sue was curled in the corner as we sat in his office and talked about his writing—over three hundred fifty works in more than one hundred publications—and his thirty-eight years teaching fourth and sixth grade in Toms River. A into our previous conversations. But rather than let that knowledge depress him, it seems to have lent him an even deeper respect for life and an underlying gratitude. "I feel good about still being here," he tells me frankly. "It's a privilege to be here, why complain? I'm still in good health," he asserts, while knocking on wood. Of his writing, he adds, "I just hope some of it lasts, even one. 'Cause I'm not going to…but I intend to enjoy it." Indeed, Finale's work has always been about celebrating the normal life, finding the underlying meaning in everyday gestures. "I try to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, to make it shine again," he says. His recently published third volume of To The Shore Once More is no excep- tion, yet there is something new—the bittersweet voice of someone looking back over a full life. Aptly, the book is divided into four seasons. In the "Winter" chapter, the story "Anticipation" finds Finale facing a curmudgeonly attitude toward Christmas in the midst of learning he is to be a great-grandfather. "Sensing my own mortality with another

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