A champion falls …
It should no surprise that the eastern hemlock was my favorite tree growing up. It ALWAYS provided shade for those trout streams that I fished with my father, ALWAYS embraced the cold and deep swimming hole where I swam as a kid, and ALWAYS with verdant comfort dotted the winter landscape scenery of the Blue Ridge Parkway. When they began to die off in my backyard of Haywood County, I felt for the first time my own impending mortality. What…