George Washington

the mirror was streaked in red not a cherry bright but blacker, more sensual there were splashes on the tiles my father had laid himself years before suds at the bottom of the lion-footed basin I had too much champagne the night before to clean it up or fully explain to my father - without telling a lie about cherry trees Adrienne Mishkin is this year's Kelly Writers House Junior Fellow and works...

George Washington slept here, in South Philadelphia. Dozed in Center City, Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy, too. These days, Washington is sleeping in a one-room, $154-a-month apartment in Germantown. Shares it with two birds, one concrete dog, a half-dozen plants, hundreds of seashells and a tankful of fish. Barring any last-minute change of plans, it's in his little apartment, surrounded by birds, plants, fish, seashells and one fake dog, that George Washington will observe his 70th birthday tomorrow, Washington's birthday.

Just in time for the birthday of the Father of our country comes an exciting new book: George Washington: A Life (Henry Holt, $35) by Willard Sterne Randall. And where it differs from previous books is how alive it makes Washington seem, especially in his formative years. "As a young man," Randall says, "Washington was raw ambition. " Randall, 55, initially dreaded the thought of doing a book on Washington, he says, because "I thought he was so dull. For a couple of years, I had a very hard time getting excited about him. I just thought, 'OK, he was a soldier, OK, he was president, OK, he had false teeth.

IT'S NOT too often a football team holds a get-together in the stands. On the road, no less. But as Germantown hosted George Washington Saturday in a Public AAAA Gold game, a sizable number of Haverford School players, perched high behind Germantown's bench, were among the spectators. "It was more like a practice," James Chakey said. "That was how the coaches looked at it. The majority of us came from taking the SATs. We didn't have much knowledge of Washington before that game.

George Washington's football players oozed so much intensity yesterday, perhaps they thought the "M" on their opponents' helmets stood for "Media. " Maybe the Eagles pictured every Jules Mastbaum Tech player popping open a note pad, or sitting in front of a computer terminal to pound out a story. The newspapers did not lose Public North football games by scores of 39-0 to Abraham Lincoln and 44-6 to Frankford in consecutive weeks. But in the aftermath, some sports writers lost the respect of Washington coach Ron Cohen.

How is this for consistency? George Washington, No. 20 in the Association Press' top 25, is ranked for the fourth consecutive week, marking the second-longest streak in school history. The school's longest streak was in 1993-94, when GW was ranked in the first eight polls before dropping out. The Colonials are rated 22d in the ESPN/USA Today poll. Young guns. Dayton is one of the youngest teams in the nation, with eight freshmen and 12 players in their first or second college seasons.

The St. Joseph's women's basketball team, traditionally a national power in the sport, has been getting toppled in the last few weeks by newcomers. It happened again last night, when St. Joseph's was victimized for the second time in a week by one of the insurgents, George Washington. The Colonials, who had posted a 63-47 rout of the Hawks at home last week, proved their victory was no fluke with a 64-59 win the second time around at Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse. It was George Washington's seventh straight victory.

George Washington running back Hakeem Sillman pulled his No. 2 jersey back to reveal the numbers 6-13 written in felt-tip pen on the front of his shoulder pads. His teammates also had the numbers on a piece of their equipment. Sillman was walking off the rain-soaked field Friday at Washington's Mickey Young Memorial Stadium after the Eagles' wild, 49-28 Public League victory over Northeast. "That was our inspiration today," Sillman said, noting that the 6-13 represented the score - not in favor of the Eagles - in the two games the teams played last season, including the league's PIAA Class AAAA championship game.

Once an injury-riddled, middle-of-the-pack baseball team, Frankford is two wins away from its third consecutive Public League title. "We were slumping in the middle of the season," senior Tim DiGiorgio said after the visiting Pioneers topped host George Washington, 7-4, Friday to claim the league's Class AAAA championship. "We weren't doing much right. All of that has changed. " Frankford struggled when regulars Kevin Montero and Carlos Ramirez were sidelined with ankle injuries.

NOT OFTEN does a masked man take to the mound. We're not talking about a bank robber, a hazmat worker or even the Lone Ranger. We're talking about a catcher. That position was almost exclusively the one and only played last season by Eduardo "Cheese" Sanchez for Frankford High's baseball team. But now the 5-10, 220-pound senior is a two-spot guy and one is 60 feet, 6 inches from the other. Monday, in a career first, Sanchez spent his time at both as the visiting Pioneers downed George Washington, 7-3, in a Public A clash.

WASHINGTON - First Virginia Commonealth, now George Mason. The two mid-majors that once made stunning runs to the Final Four from the Colonial Athletic Association will soon be reunited in the Atlantic Ten. George Mason, one of the CAA's founding members, is joining the A-10 as of July 1, an official with knowledge of the agreement told the AP on Sunday night. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the move will be officially announced Monday. VCU just played its first season in the A-10.

At Hagan Arena. George Washington vs. Richmond, 11:30 a.m.; Duquesne vs. VCU, 2:30 p.m.; Xavier vs. Temple, 5 p.m.; Butler vs. St. Louis, 7:30 p.m.

La Salle unofficially earned a bye in the first round of the Atlantic Ten basketball tournament with a win on Wednesday night and also improved its NCAA tournament resumé. With Ramon Galloway making a lasting impression on senior night in his last regular-season home game, the Explorers defeated George Washington, 84-70, at Tom Gola Arena. Galloway scored 29 points, his second-highest output of the season. He had 31 points in a 69-61 win at Virginia Commonwealth on Jan. 26. Galloway was not overly emotional about the occasion, preferring to look at the bigger picture.

Langston Galloway looked at the numbers and winced. St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli showed his players their previous six-game totals and it wasn't pleasant reading for Galloway, the junior guard and second-team all-Atlantic Ten choice last season. So Galloway took the numbers to heart and scored a season-high 26 points as St. Joseph's defeated George Washington, 71-59, on Saturday in a key A-10 game at Hagan Arena. "My effort on the court was a reason we have struggled, and I had to pick myself up and get a win," Galloway said.

Langston Galloway looked at the numbers and winced. St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli showed his players their previous six-game totals and it wasn't pleasant reading for Galloway, the junior guard and second-team all-Atlantic Ten choice last season. So Galloway took the numbers to heart and scored a season-high 26 points as St. Joseph's defeated George Washington, 71-59, on Saturday in a key A-10 game at Hagan Arena. "My effort on the court was a reason we have struggled, and I had to pick myself up and get a win," Galloway said.

Let's see what you know about some of the 44 presidents we honor with a holiday today. 1. He was the first president - and the only one among the first five - not born in Virginia. a. James Monroe. b. John Quincy Adams. c. Andrew Jackson. d. John Adams. 2. He was the last president born in Virginia. a. Zachary Taylor. b. Woodrow Wilson. c. James Madison. d. John F. Kennedy. 3. He was president when the British invaded Washington, torching the Capitol and the president's house.

As the nation's first president, George Washington led a young country that had declared "all men are created equal," yet owned 300 slaves, gave slave owners the legal right to recover their runaways, and skirted a Pennsylvania law providing for gradual abolition by sending some of his slaves to Virginia. That dichotomy, at the heart of the President's House exhibit at Independence Mall, was on the minds of those touring the site Sunday on the eve of the federal holiday honoring all U.S. presidents.