19 JANUARY 1991, Page 28

Retrenchment

Care? Of course I care! . . . Only less. Something less now. It's the same way, I would guess, with the trees, maple and oak (taking them year by year) losing their leaves. They look reluctant about it — as you'd feel toward a flag, say, or a parchment, some antique charter you'd held to, shredding and blowing away.

Hell, yes, one cares! But less, as there's less of one to care. And that's like the trees, too: In leaf, how could they bear those coming tons of snow? Going into divestiture and cutting an overloss is what it comes to.

Peter Kane Dufault