In Charles Hillinger's piece on Vermont ("Content Vermonters Keep Clock Turned Back," April 21) he quotes a person on how to tell a real Vermonter (one must have been born in Vermont).
Here is another, perhaps better way: People who eat pie for breakfast are New Englanders. If they eat mincemeat pie, they're Vermonters.
Too bad you missed what Calvin Coolidge said at Bennington: "If liberty and freedom ever disappeared from the U.S., they could be rediscovered in Vermont."
JOE STRATTON
Marina del Rey