• Wayne's Wolrd: A noble old elm tree falls victim to disease

  • Friday's National Arbor Day wasn't just about planting trees.
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  • Friday's National Arbor Day wasn't just about planting trees.
    It was also about Rocky Perrone. Rocky's general store and deli store in Central Valley wasn't huge, but his heart was.
    "He would give people trays of food and say he was sorry for your troubles," remembers nephew Ernie Perrone.
    Ask Rocky to hold your copy of the newspaper, he'd do it even if you didn't remind him.
    In other words, he had a following in the hub of historic Central Valley, close to its post office, Methodist church and firehouse.
    He could step out of his store door — he lived in the back with his wife — and see the pride of Central Valley, an 80-foot-tall American elm tree.
    It greeted him when he marched home from fighting Nazis in World War II, wearing five battle stars, the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
    The tree stood for this small community. It was a "meet you at the tree" kind of place.
    So when Rocky died some years ago, townsfolk dedicated the tree and its circle of round stones to him. Forever more, this would be Perrone Circle.
    This was quite a salute to Rocky.
    Rocky's tall elm swayed its elegant upside-down-vase-like crown since forever.
    But it had to be cut down a couple of weeks ago because it was infected with the imported Dutch elm fungus.
    Its branches were falling off.
    Seems that European logs delivered to Cleveland in 1930 were first infested with European elm bark beetles carrying the fungus.
    The disease, over time, has wiped out more than 100 million of our elms.
    "It's too bad; the elm's a huge loss," says Woodbury Supervisor John Burke, who comes from the Bronx, where trees are especially cherished.
    "The elm," he says, "was a beautiful, gorgeous tree in the middle of the road, and cars would go around it. But the tree was very, very sick."
    The loss is all the more hard-felt because shade trees like American elms delight us. They make us daydream. They've been known to listen to our troubles.
    Rocky's elm was a heritage tree, too. Patriots rallied around a "Liberty tree" elm in 1775 Massachusetts.
    It must be said that big trees aren't just old. They're small civilizations full of busy life. Such as tiny wasps, ants, and even hummingbirds poking around as the trees sigh and creak.
    So trees beckon to us.
    Which is why kids in The Mount Academy Forestry Club in Esopus were curious about a huge black oak on their property.
    Turns out it's the biggest black oak in New York state, at 98 feet high and 20 feet around, and now listed on the state Department of Environmental Conservation's Big Tree Registry.
    "It was a surprise; the kids were thrilled and it's neat to have this heritage," says Mount math teacher Conrad Wiser.
    So Arbor Day cheers for Perrone's Circle in the Town of Woodbury and the proud Mount Academy Forestry Club.
    And don't forget New York state-born Julius Sterling Morton, a Nebraska newspaper editor and politician so fascinated by trees that he started Arbor Day in 1872.
    Since then, Elm Street became one of the most common street names in America.
    In the 1930s, the elm-destroying beetle arrived and finally has done in the one in Perrone's Circle.
    But the tree gave the beetle a run for its money.
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