By Manfried Rieder Starhemberg
Monday was a sad day at the Eastside Restaurant in Newport. The beautiful waterfront had been graced by a stately willow tree for decades and the tree which had grown into a huge arch, has been the backdrop for many a tourist photo, has been a feature in wedding albums or served as a meeting spot for romance. It is no more. Eastside's owner Dena Gray, always vigilant of everything that is changing on her property detected changes in the tree and after examination it was found that the old landmark had become dangerously rotten even though it looked fine from the outside.
Arborist Don Poutre was engaged to deal with it and he did in great style. The tree came down in great style, all of its eighty feet splashing into the lake, revealing that the lower core of it was hollowed by rot. Don had to cut this massive monster bit by bit, standing on the tree right on the lake, attaching chains and eventually "landing" each section by dragging it ashore with his tractor.
Mr. Poutre was kind enough to cut a slice of the trunk so that we could try to count the tree rings to determine the age of the fallen landmark and we were able to count some 80 rings but the tree might be older than that because some of the rings were very small and only an expert examination would yield its true age but it does not really matter as it will live on in the photo albums of thousands of visitors to Newport and the Eastside restaurant.
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