''It's a good thing I wasn't born in this country,'' said Aunt Dee when I found her filling out an application form for a volunteer position with the local library.

''But you can never be president,'' I teased.

''Who wants to be president?'' she riposted. ''If I were president everybody would know my business. Not that I have anything to be ashamed of,'' she added hastily, ''but I like my privacy.''

''So why is it a good thing that you weren't born in the United States?'' I asked.

''It says here in this form that I should fill in my ethical background. They give me a lot of choices. Well, if I go back far enough, some of my ancestors were born in Egypt, when the Jewish people were slaves there. So I'm an African American. That would be fine, but when they were freed, they went to Palestine, which is in Asia. So I'm an Asian American, too. And when we were thrown out of Palestine my ancestors went to Spain, so I'm Hispanic, and then to Germany and then to Poland, so I'm a European American also. If I had been born in the U.S., like my children, I would be a Native American, which they are. And it's nobody's business, anyway.''

''You certainly have a diverse ethnic background,'' I acknowledged.

''And so have you,'' she pointed out. ''And you were born in this country. So how come you're not president?''

''I don't have your perspicacity,'' I confessed.

Aunt Dee probably didn't know what perspicacity was, but she knew a compliment when she heard one. ''Thank you,'' she said graciously.