Way to Go, Pickering! When I heard my old college chum Kris Pickering had been elected to the Nevada Supreme Court, it went a long way toward restoring my faith in democracy.

Anyone who has ever played bridge with Kris will tell you the voters of Nevada have made a very wise choice. Playing bridge with Kris, your best strategy is to grab the seat opposite her so as to be her partner.

I remember so well playing with Kris and Geoff Walker and Larry Maloney in the lavishly comfortable crypt of a building erected by Cornelius Vanderbuilt which we had appropriated, for a time, in the name of the revolution, but I guess that's another story.

What I would give to sit down to bridge with those three extraordinary individuals.

Pickering was a poet and a presidential scholar in spite of having cut most of her classes in high school, and she had been featured in Seventeen Magazine.

"Show us how you feel when you write a poem," the photographer said.

Kris and I were in an Old English literature class taught by the estimable Dewey Faulkner. I did my paper on Piers the Ploughman and she did hers on the Pearl poet. We had lots of discussions of the meaning of the "precious pearl withouten spot."

It's based on the biblical story of the jeweler who sells all his jewels for a single pearl.

After many years I realize that Kris was the pearl. Her dad was a wonderful man who passed away just a couple of years ago, a physician with a true calling to help others, and he loved her dearly, as well he might. And the love that is expressed in 'The Pearl', I think, has to be the love of a father for his daughter.

This came to me as Sarah was growing up. I was giving her a bath when she was two, and I looked at her and thought, "My precious pearl withouten spot!"

Anyway, Pickering had the good sense to dump me. Twice! And she was right both times.

So you see, the newest justice on the Nevada Supreme Court has a long history of making wise and sensible decisions.  ¶ 8:32 PM