THOSE COWS: It’s not just the people at GGB Elementary School
who thought that that group of cows on the hillside were bears.
Hunters, unfortunately, have made the same mistake – with deadly
consequence.

Ralph Holzwarth of Bradford writes, “I own the cows in question.
About ten years ago, one of them was killed for a bear. Also had a
horse killed for a deer. But now I am planning on posting because
of ATVs.”

We’ve seen some large animals such as horses out in pastures
during hunting season adored with fluorescent orange bows. Hard to
believe people could mistake a horse for any game animal but,
obviously, it has happened.

‘MEAN’ OF US: Judith dePonceau of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, caught
us in a rash moment.

After the Nov. 6 election, we had printed a comment made to us
about the low voter turnout. In it, senior citizens and “people on
welfare” were chastised for apparently contributing to that
problem.

“I am an older person and it is true that I could not get out to
vote for the first time in many many years. It happened that I
could not manage to get an absentee ballot. I’m not on ‘welfare’
but I do get some government subsidies, and certainly I care,” she
writes.

“If ‘people on welfare’ voted in fewer numbers than others – and
we don’t know that they did – then perhaps there should be a
greater effort to encourage them to vote. I doubt if they do not
care about issues and elections, again, in any greater numbers than
others.

“Sorry, it just struck me as a mean and unjustifiable comment,
and once again, I am surprised that you used it.”

Judith had rightly suggested that the original comment and her
response had a place on the editorial page and not Round the
Square. Of course, she is correct. However, we thought her response
deserves to be in RTS where the comments first appeared.

In any case, RTS does not as a rule print political opinion but
sometimes we succumb to our need to complete a column.