AIN'T NOBODY'S BUSINESS BUT MY OWN

By CALVIN TRILLIN

A Wall Street acquaintance I'll call Martin J. Kashfleau, whose life sometimes seems dominated by what he refers to as "tax implications," has worried all summer about how he can take advantage of more than just the capital-gains provision of the tax-reduction package. So far, he's worked out a plan to adopt both his Aunt Hilda and the gardener as a way of getting the full tax credit for children, but he's terribly concerned about whether the way the law is written makes it more sensible for him to stay alive for another 10 years, until the estate-tax provisions take full effect, or to reconstitute his estate into a family farm and go ahead and die right now.

In an increasingly interconnected world, it's tempting to interpret even nontax news stories according to their impact on your own life. How about the UPS strike? Yes, of course, a responsible citizen is concerned with analyzing the role played by part-time jobs in the American economy, but perhaps not as concerned as he is with whether or not those two polo shirts from the catalog company--one in puce, one in taupe--will arrive in time for the most important weekend of the summer.

I can't criticize that. I like to think that I'm as concerned as the next guy about the future of the European alliance, for instance, but when I read about the serious economic and political strains caused by the European Union's plan to create a unified currency, I can't help wondering whether this could soften up the franc enough for me to have a meal in Paris without refinancing my house.

I actually found the crash of a Federal Express plane at Newark International Airport not long ago a more persistent personal concern than the UPS strike. I tried to respond to the news on a high level--to express gratitude that nobody was seriously injured, to listen thoughtfully to interviews about whether the incident has anything to teach us about improving runway safety--but I couldn't help wondering whether that plane was carrying an important FedEx package for me. Who from? How am I supposed to know?

When my wife finally persuaded me that a FedEx plane bringing electronic supplies from Anchorage was unlikely to have contained anything I desperately needed, I began thinking about the personal implications of a tiny news item I'd seen in the Toronto Globe and Mail about bears in Banff National Park.

Apparently, when wardens capture a bear that has been troubling tourists, they try to condition the bear against such behavior by setting off firecrackers and spraying the bear with pepper spray. While doing that, the wardens costume themselves as tourists, since bears in Banff National Park tend to stay away from wardens, whom they recognize by their uniforms.

Where we live in the summer, there are sometimes bears in the woods. Would it do me any good, while walking through the woods, to wear a Banff National Park warden's uniform? How would I go about obtaining a Banff National Park warden's uniform sufficiently authentic to fool a bear? And would it need to be delivered by UPS?