The headline in the morning paper

shouted across the top of the

front page, “Worst day for Dow

in months.” It was an Arizona

paper, but the man reading the

headline was a Michigander

and he wondered if something

had gone wrong at a Dow

Chemical plant like maybe heavy

snow caused a roof to cave in

upon a gazillion barrels of left

over agent orange causing them

instantaneously and simultaneously

to blow painting the town of Mid-

land a shade short of red but cayenne

pepper hot which then melted all

the snow and caused extensive

flooding throughout mid-Michigan.

Then he thought about a friendly

fellow named D. Dow, a member at

a church to which the man used

to belong. The man knew from

seeing the weather reports that

the winter was particularly long

and bitterly cold with wind chill

sometimes down around minus

five thousand along the eastern

shore of Lake Michigan where

Mr. Dow lived and the man

wondered if D. Dow caught a

cold and lost his wondrously deep

bass voice and couldn’t sing in

church for a few Sundays.

But after reading a line or two

the man realized that the story

was about the Dow-Jones

Industrials. Dow-Jones the man

wondered. Why not report on

something that really reflects the

market, like the S and P, except

then the man might wonder if a

big hurricane had hit the banks

of Louisiana again and all the

electricity had been lost heating

up the coolers and spoiling the

seafood in the S and P food

markets. You just never know

about the weather anymore, he

concluded as he turned to the

back page to see if any volcanoes

had erupted recently in the Upper

Peninsula.