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On receiving these letters and other feedback (interestingly all from men) on David's articles, our first thought was to let David speak for himself in response. However, we realized that having used these pieces as the Editorial, the responsibility for 'Notes on Hunting' and 'Lisa Goes To The Mountain' was ours as well. It is not obviously apparent in the way we designed the page that 'Notes on Hunting' is, alone, the editorial statement. 'Lisa Goes To The Mountain' is a story that we encouraged David to write, which we found to be an amusing, personal, definitely subjective view of a day in the woods. The testing that occurs in the woods between hunters (especially between an experienced hunter and one new to such concerns) is not altogether different than the way a teacher keeps an eye out for his/her students' safety and progress. That the teacher was, in this case, a man, the 'student' a woman, and the subject matter hunting in the woods, put the story in a socially loaded context.
Our assumption was that the intelligence of the editorial, 'Notes on Hunting', would inform the humor in the story that followed. If it has not, we apologize not only to our offended/confused readers, but to David, for our error in judgment. The discussions provoked by this issue have raised some interesting questions about the magazine itself, that we address ourselves to in the current editorial.