Yellow perch.

Saw a guy out in a boat today fishin just thirty, forty feet from shore. "How's it goin?," I called. He held up a yellow perch had to be close to three pounds and grinned. I waved back. Just a couple of weeks ago the fellas across the road were ice fishin out there, hittin some good lookin perch but not as big as this guy today. Still can't believe how much damage that December ice storm did -- so many trees down you can see clear through to the houses on the far shore. You can even see the cars crawlin along Canistear Road.

I been mullin it over today, the state of the business, the state of the world. Cripes, tryin to get my mind around such things makes my bones groan. I wonder, how do the bigwigs do it, the CEOs and chairmen, the boys and girls in the executive suite? I know they got that special water of theirs -- comes from icebergs or glaciers or Tasmanian raindrops or some remote aquifer in Patagonia or something. And I know they got personal trainers and those machines that flatten your abs and strengthen your core. I even see 'em in their tights out runnin before the sun comes up. Even with all that, how do they do it? Keep flashin those white-capped incisors all day long. It's demoralizin to the people in the trenches.

Quist thought it was all an act. "You think they know what they're doin? Nah. They got speechwriters who feed 'em scripts. They got finance people to watch the dough. Suits, they're just expensive window dressing. Wind 'em up and they march around all day barking orders and grinning." I told him I thought he was bein too cynical. "They've got all that responsibility. It can't be easy."

He took a lighter to his pipe and glanced at me between puffs of smoke. "Easy? It's easy when you're takin home that kind of money, poot. You think they're worryin about how many weeks of unemployment they're gonna get?" I thought to myself, you never know what another person is worried about. Despite their grins, the suits must be worried about something.

I got a fire goin in the hearth and found myself sittin in the armchair watchin the last of the daylight play on the lake. The state of the business and the state of the world. Maybe it's none of my business, maybe it is -- one way or the other, it ain't makin me smile these days.