Few members of my family have been involved in things political. Whether concern over character or distrust of partisanship has kept us far from ballot and position, I am uncertain. Whatever the truth, however, the only Pickering to hold public office was appointed. In 1881— 82 my great grandfather William Blackstone Pickering was chief clerk of the Tennessee legislature. About the same time another great grandfather "Bud" Griffin was killed in a brawl in Franklin, Tennessee. With a reputation unsullied by politics, Griffin was a drinker and a philanderer, and it seems probable that matters fleshly, not political, lay behind his death. Still, Griffin was outspoken, and some rash proposal of his might have raised consciousness so much that it provoked a permanent veto. A splattering of Griffin courses through me, and once or twice an occasional statement of mine has warmed the blood of the politically active. On my remarking that I thought De Gaulle a great Frenchman, a man across the table from me at a seated dinner jumped up and shaking his fist, shouted, "You Communist, burn your draft card. Carry a protest sign. Move to Russia."