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i u press-Kepubhcan—Monday, August 13,1984 Diggers find desire for worms has ups,downs By JONNIE L. ROBERTS Wall Street Joumal-ONS WISCASSET, Maine - During the night, the full moon has ex- erted its usual forceful sway over the Sheepscot River. So on this particular morning a low tide is surrendering a weedy mud flat that is black with gray splotches, like fresh charcoal on a grill. Out on the water, Dean Krah is motoring toward land with his stylish sidekicks, Spirit and Faith, two blond Pomeranians. At the edge of the flats, Krah climbs out and sinks into mud that comes near the top of his hip boots. He begins digging with a short-handled rake. The muck is home to sand worms; Krah is a sandworm digger. In 2Vi hours, he will rip from their burrows 1,500 worms, which he will sell for four cents each, or $60, to a dealer who sup- plies the leisure-fishing market. Sandworms and bloodworms please the palates of flounder and striped bass and are the backbone of Maine's $4 million marine-worm industry. In 1983, 1,100 licensed diggers scooped up 54 million worms, and 18 dealers shipped them to the Eastern seaboard, the California coast and France and Italy. Ultimate- News / ly, fishermen pay $2.50 to $4 a dozen for them. — ••- — It is an industry based on the likes of 39-year-old Krah, who earned about $10,000 last year for digging sporadically through the week, starting at dawn, and working^fcverr through the harsh Maine winter. \If takes its toll/' he says. \I got rheumatism/Ar- thritis in the neck. Three-fourths of the diggers got bad backs.\ And many aren't fr^ppy with their lot. Last spring, sandworm diggers here in Lincoln County struck for higher pay, but the strike collapsed when the fishing season in the Northeast got under way at the beginning of summer. Now, matters are more or less harmonious. And despite their complaints, diggers do find at- tractions in the job. Krah, for ex- ample, quit a promising police career — he was assistant chief in Warwick — to die. He likes the *• outdoor aspects dnEe~7ob, he says. And digger Darrell Grady says, \The highlight of my day is a bucketful.\ The buckets, by most stan- dards, contain most unappealing creatures. Bloodworms — the commercial variety — grow a foot long and sprout two rows of feathery legs from head to tail. Sandworms are a bit longer and have iridescent skin. Both can bare fangs and pack an irritating venom. \They sting like hornets,\ says Ray Lemar, whose family has dug in Wiscasset for three generations. Bloodworms and sandworms occasionally eat each other, which isn't very good for the marine-worm industry, of course. But sandworms also suck microscopic fare into their slimy Tax bracket figures in investment strategy By GAIL COLLINS UPI Business Writer NEW YORK (UPI) - Your tax bracket is not the same as the proportion of taxes you pay, and thereby lies a crucial lesson for the novice investor. \Nobody knows what his tax bracket is, and that's un- fortunate, because it's probably the single most important in- formation in planning invest- ment strategy/' said Jay Rabinowitz, vice president in Merrill Lynch's financial plann- ing department. K WupTeWm alSJcafcte tncdmr of $50,000 paid $13,000 in federal taxes in 1983. That meant 26 per- cent of their earnings went for taxes. But their tax bracket — the rate at which their last dollars were taxed — was 44 per- cent. When trying to decide whether to take advantage of a tax-favored investment, it would be the 44 percent rate they would refer to. Prentice-Hall, the publishing and financial services company, recently offered another exam- ple based on the computations re- quired to fill out federal tax forms: \If you have $40,000 taxable in- come and file jointly, your tax is $6,274 plus 33 percent of the $4,800 that exceeds $32,000. Your tax bracket is therefore 33 percent, although your effective tax rate is just under 20 percent. In other words, 33 cents of any additional dollar you make goes to Uncle Sam.\ The American tax system is progressive, which means that everyone pays the same rate on the first dollars they earn. A man who makes $10,000 and a man who makes $100,000 both pay the eoma omAnnt nt ta f f%t% thfit in. itial $10,000. But as income in- creases, the rate of taxation on additional dollars goes up. That is why earning more money can never push you into a new bracket so high you'll wind up losing more than you made. \If people really understood the concept they'd realize it's on- ly last dollars that will be taxed in a higher bracket/' Rabinowitz said. At Merrill Lynch, Rabinowitz said, the rule of thumb is that in- vestors whose incomes put them below the 35 percent bracket are iror suitable for-tax*- advantaged investments. In 1983, that would have meant any cou- ple with less than $35,200 in tax- able income. Resource Management Inc., a New Orleans-based financial planning firm, divides tax- favored investments into those where tax savings are a fringe benefit, and those in which tax deductions are the major point. \I wouldn't look to what's com- monly referred to as tax shelter, unless they were in the 40 percent bracket or above,\ said Ran- dolph Waesche of Resource Cash N Carry Specials August 13th — August 18th # ^V Edwardian Bouquet NELSON'S FLOWER SHOP, INC 561-2200 Here Ye! There Ye! Vermont Transit can take you daily from here in Pittsburgh to there in Burlington for less. To Burlington Bus Terminal A *\ m*\ % A Q Ml To Burlington International V\ $11.00 Includes price of ferry! .Also daily, direct service to the Medical Center Hospital. Ask about our Green Light Package Express Service between Pittsburgh and Burlington Call 563-1480 or 1-800-451-3292 for information. Lv Pittsburgh AT Burlington Bus Terminal Burlington Intl Airport Daily 9:50 AM 11:20 AM 11-35 AM Daiiv 4:40 PM 6:00 PM h ;.=> PM / We've Got a Good Thing Going VERMONT TRANSIT LINES burrows, where it sticks to sand- worm mucous and supplements? supper. The worms' procreation prac- tices aren't any more appealing. A sandworm male releases his sperm into the water, which a sandworm female draws into her burrow. Bloodworm males and females burst open to release sperm or eggs. Still? worm digging can offer some glamour. Recently, Krah landed an appearance in an ad for Stren fishing line made by Du Pont Co. The ad agency put him in a fancy hotel in Bar Harbor during the photo sessions and plied him with a lifetime supply of free fishing line. \They kind of put me up on a pedestal/' he recalls with a sigh. Now, the Stren ads are torn from outdoor magazines and are pinned up in Sparky's Restaurant on Route 1, where the disheveled diggers col- lect to eat breakfast and flirt with the waitresses. From the flats, about a dozen diggers move onto dealer Ivan Flye's Maine Bait Shop and Pic- torial Studio (worms bankrolled the move into snapshots, not the reverse) to tally their first worm harvest since the strike ended. The worms are dumped into long wooden pans in Flye's cellar, and the diggers begin pulling one worm at a time from the squirm- ing, tangled pink pile. Blood- worms are stored in plastic pans, 250 in a pan. Sandworms, because they are so sloppy, go in- to a screen-bottomed box, 125 worms in each. Wctrrn quality control requires each digger to place a piece of paper with his identification number into his pans. Then Thomas Dinsmore, the office manager and shipping clerk, transfers the worms to card- board shirt boxes lined with newspaper and- a marine weed: The cargo is trucked to Boston's airport by refrigerated truck for flights to the fishing front. In his cramped office, Flye takes incoming orders: 18,000 bloods and 15,000 s«nds on a re- cent day. When he has orders in hand, he buys worms; otherwise, there are no purchases from the diggers. Flye, who is 68 years old and has been in worms a half cen- tury, says he knows all the dig- gers' tricks. Some will bathe their worms in fresh water, wffich causes them to swell. Others will deliberately over- count their catch. \That one over- there,\ says Flye, pointing to a digger, \he had more worms on his index card than on his ledgeiV\ The result: The of- fender will be docked $35. •••••••••••^ Montgomery Ward The Beauty Salon 8.50 off permanent Helene Curtis UniPerm, reg $35 One Better Perm, reg $40 sale $29 Sale perms include haircut, styling Tinted, bleached, lonq hairhiqher Advertised prices good through August 18, 1984. Senior Citixens Sove $0% on Tuesday 4 Wednesday Walk-ins Welnae New Haws: Mm.-Sal 9:30-9 P.M.; $u. 11-5 Pyromid Moll, Pittsburgh — 563-7200 SALE on terrific denim picks for men. Plain Pockets\ Sale 11.99 Reg. $U. Our Plain Pockets® jeans look great and fit great, with nothing on the back pockets to spoil their looks.. 100% cotton denim. Men's waist sizes. Levi's\ jeans Sale 14.99 Reg. 1S.99. j ne distinctive back- pocket stitchingtellseveryone you're wearing Levi's® jeans with that famous fit. Pre-shrunk dark blue cotton denim in men's waist sizes 28 to 42. Wrangler- jeans Sale 17.99 Reg. $24. Home on the range but just os comfortable on the street, Wrangler® denim jeans come in sizes. Lee s jeans Sale 19.99 Reg. 23.50. Pre-washed Lee® jeans have a softer look and softer feel. With five rivited pockets, center-creased legs. Indigo-dyed denim of comfor- table 100% cotton. Men's waist sizes 28 to 40. .119. ittfc. t ##JTY pltOfl# ttovrt: §:tt A.M 441-7*10 JCPenney Pyromid Moll Plottsburgh Store) Hovrs: Swwdoy 12-5 (EDITOR'S N first part of a s the consequence the new tax lcgii to law 09 July 18 ByFRANK1 UPI Busk LOS ANGELE $50 million wort! high-tech equipr track of everyth come of ever messages from athletes contrib cess of the Sum r 14 We wanted t that have ne' before,\ said Ji president of tei Los Angeles Oly Committee. These \thing electronic mail s pic voice messa a computer sysi user about e medal couni biographies and But what hap high-priced har the 16-day Olym Some of it will Angeles, but me brought in for t returned to stew and/or sold to ot Miles and mil optics cable im Technologies as munications n Olympics — spread out ove mile area — vs and be used b; upgrade its sen in Southern Cali The rest of th equipment — ii puters, 2,000 te 500 printers anc — is for sale. \What is not into AT&T foi tions,\ said Bo relations man; Technologies in \It's all for s it,\ he said. Some of the t carry the Olyna ing snapped up the games, he si 'The Olyrapii are removed f are being offer then and there eminently suc< said. \I don't th immediate plaj public.\
