Saddened by changes

January 4, 2008

Dear Sir,

I feel so sad as I write this. My wife and I vacationed in your beautiful Southampton Parish for 14 years commencing in 1981. Although we sensed an undercurrent of racial problems then, it seemed to us to be far ahead of my country in racial harmony.

The violence I'm reading about in your online newspaper just didn't occur even in 1995, our last year of vacationing in Bermuda.

One other serious problem I read about is the decline in your school system. As Bermuda is discovering, big campus schools are not the answer, but only contribute to the problem. Slowly, we're finding that smaller schools here are more effective and grades improve.

My greatest wish is that Bermuda is successful in turning these problems around.

Hope to be able to return once again to the beautiful Island we called our"second home"and find it as it was in 1981.

ED DOHERTY

Rotterdam, New York