David Stalling grew up in Westport, and graduated from Staples High School in 1979.
After forestry school in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and serving in a Marine Corps Force Recon unit, he moved to Montana in 1986. he has spent most of his career protecting and restoring wild places and wildlife, with an emphasis on and fondness for grizzly bears.
David lives in Missoula, close to his 26-year-old son Cory. He is a writer and photographer. Click here for his Substack page, “From the Wild Side.” David writes:
Some trees are more than just trees.
They become landmarks, witnesses, and quiet members of a family’s history. For me, that tree was the enormous red oak that stood in the middle of Hickory Drive.
For those of us who grew up in that neighborhood — Including my sister Sue and my brothers Ed, Bob and Tim — the “tree in the middle of the road” was part of our lives.
I do not know teh exact age of that tree, but it’s safe to say it was likely 300 years old. Which means it was already roughly 230 years old when my parents (Ed and Barbara Stalling) bought our house in 1956. By the time I was born in 1960, it had already stood there for generations — long before our family arrived, and long before most of the houses and families we knew moved in.
It stood about halfway down Hickory Drive, at the top of a little hill. You would go down one hill, climb another, and just as you reached the crest, there it was: the big red oak, planted by nature likely long before the road was built around it.
So it ended up smack dab in the middle of the road, between the Doland and Deluca houses. Beyond it, the road dropped downhill again.
Red oak tree, smack in the middle of Hickory Drive.
That tree was part of our childhood geography. If you were giving someone directions to our house, you said, “Pass the big tree in the middle of the road, then start downhill, and and when you get to the bottom of the hill we’re the little red-and-white house on the left.”
Everyone knew exactly what you meant.
That tree saw its share of our childhood adventures — and misadventures.
I snuck out in my brother’s 1967 Mustang convertible before I was old enough to drive. One winter night I hit ice, slid, and introduced the Mustang to that great old oak.
I’m sure there were other scars near the bottom of the tree from encounters like mine, although the tree undoubtedly regarded them as little more than scratches from passing generations.
We came close to hitting it in our homemade go-karts, too. We nailed tires onto those things, but had a tendency to fall off at exactly the wrong moment. Add a hill, lack of brakes and youthful confidence, and that big oak became a very important obstacle.
Bicycles on ice. Sleds in winter. Flying downhill with considerably more enthusiasm than judgment. The tree was always there.
I climbed it once, too, almost to the top — a fairly remarkable achievement, considering how enormous it was.
There was even a sign on the tree warning drivers, “Caution — Children.” Another sign said, “Slow — Children.”
Mr. Marshall, a teacher and football coach at Long Lots Junior High, once gave me a ride home and noticed the sign. He looked at it, then me and, smiling, said, “Slow children? That explains a lot.”
The tree was not merely something we had to drive around. It was part of our lives. It was a meeting point, a landmark, a warning to slow down, and a silent witness to all the ordinary things that make up a childhood.
And now it is gone.
The beginning of the end.
My brother Ed recently heard from our old neighbor, Anna DeVito, that the tree had been cut down. We don’t know exactly why. Perhaps it had begun to rot. Perhaps there was concern that a tree that enormous and
old could eventually fall onto the wires, a house, or the road.
Trees, even magnificent ones, eventually grow old and die. Sometimes cutting one down is the safest and wisest thing to do.
But knowing that doesn’t make it any less sad.
That oak probably stood there for 2 or 3 centuries. It survived storms, winters, hurricanes, droughts, countless cars, generations of children, and all of us who thought we were invincible.
It was there through my childhood, my teenage years, and when I graduated Staples High School in 1979. It was there while I served in the Marine Corps in the early 1980s, and it was there when I moved to Montana in 1986.
It was a giant, beautiful old tree. In a strange way, it belonged to all of us who grew up around it.
Another view. (All photos/Anna DeVito)
I can still picture that hill. I can still see the road rising toward the tree, then falling away again. I can still imagine the Mustang sliding on the ice, the go-karts careening downhill, the bicycles and sleds, and a kid climbing as high as he dared into those enormous branches.
That red oak is gone now, but it left behind something that cannot be cut down.
Memories.
For those of us who grew up on Hickory Drive, the big red oak will always be there — standing in the middle of the road, just over the hill, waiting for us to slow down.
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