RE: PROTESTERS plant pot in valley park. Your article on the seed
planters was a joy to read. It took me back to my boyhood years when I
recalled the "scenes of my youth, when every sport could please, the
never-failing brook, the busy mill and the church that topped the
neighboring hill." It had something of the pastoral quality of Oliver
Goldsmith's Deserted Village. And as I visualized those brave souls,
Kerry and Dean and their friends, toiling cheerfully at their
self-appointed task, a few lines from another poem studied in my
school days came back to me.

Thinking of Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, I
seemed to visualize the name McDowell on one of the local graveyard
memorials.

Despite its pastoral tone your article had a very serious
undertone.

Kerry and Dean and their friends were making a very unambiguous
statement.

Along with Lynn Harichy, Marc Emory, Chris Clay and that little lady
who courageously refused to surrender her bus seat some years ago,
they were saying: "Enough is enough!

This is our country as well as yours.

We refuse to be back-seat passengers any longer." I trust they have
indeed "planted a seed" that will win them the respect of Canadians
everywhere. For my money, they have entered their footnote in history.

Pat Dolan

(Nostalgia and humor aside, Canadians are still divided on the issue.)