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.

Jane Hampton Cook is author of six books, including Stories of Faith and Courage From the Revolutionary War and her recent children's book, What Does the President Look Like? When John Adams left Philadelphia after the first Continental Congress in 1774, he didn't expect to return. "Took our departure . . . from the happy, peaceful, elegant, hospitable, and polite city of Philadelphia. It is not very likely that I shall ever see this part of the world again, but I shall ever retain a most grateful, pleasing sense of the many civilities I have received in it. " He did return, living loudly for the cause of liberty and helping start a nation here.

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.

Rain and sun and rain and sun and rain and sun. Along with plenty of wind. As George Washington High hosted Northeast on Friday in what became a Public AAAA Gold football all-timer, observers almost expected referee Ernie Gallagher to be replaced by "Hurricane" Schwartz. At one point, with the skies becoming incredibly dark, star Northeast running back Marquis Edwards, unavailable due to injury, shook his head and muttered, "It looks like the world's about to end up in here.

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.

TO THOSE familiar with his body of work, it should come as no surprise that Dean Grande fills the leadership role for George Washington High's baseball team. Even as a freshman, he was saying, in effect, "Yo, see those horns over there? I don't care if they belong to a bull. I'm gonna grab them. " The 5-8, 170-pound Grande is in his fourth season of starting at catcher. And that's exactly how long he has played the position. Not bad, right? "I always saw myself as a shortstop.

DEVIN OLIVER scored a season-high 19 points and Dayton defeated visiting George Washington for the second time in 4 days, taking a 67-50 win last night in the first round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament. The sixth-seeded Flyers (20-11), who posted their fifth straight 20-win season, will face third-seeded Xavier in Friday's quarterfinals in Atlantic City, N.J. Coming off a 75-59 win over the Colonials on March 3, Dayton jumped out to a 31-17 halftime lead. George Washington got within five, at 48-43 with 7:05 remaining, on a David Pellom layup.

Chaz Williams scored 21 points and Raphiael Putney and Javorn Farrell added 20 apiece as Massachusetts rallied to defeat Duquesne, 92-83, Tuesday night in Amherst, Mass., in the first round of the Atlantic Ten Conference tournament. The eighth-seeded Minutemen (21-10) will face No. 21 Temple, the top seed, in Friday's quarterfinals in Atlantic City. There were eight ties and 14 lead changes, with UMass trailing by 78-73 with 6 minutes, 3 seconds left. Terrell Vinson then hit a three-pointer, Farrell made a layup and Williams hit four straight free throws for a 82-78 Minutemen lead with 3:37 to go. After Sean Johnson's three-pointer cut the deficit to one, Williams made a layup and UMass hit 8 of 10 free throws to avenge an 80-69 loss to Duquesne on Jan. 18. The Minutemen shot 50.8 percent from the field (30 of 59)

Obama and top lawmakers meet WASHINGTON - After quarreling for months, President Obama and the top two Republicans in Congress expressed optimism Wednesday about finding a common jobs and energy agenda, prodded by political reality to show results in an election year. Meeting face-to-face for the first time since July, Obama, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R., Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), and top Democratic lawmakers emerged without the acrimony and crises that have been typical hallmarks of their relationships.

WASHINGTON - It was Senior Night at George Washington but it was a freshman and sophomore who helped La Salle stave off a near disaster in a 60-56 win over the Colonials last night in an Atlantic 10 Conference victory. The win means La Salle will, at the very least, host a first-round A-10 Tournament game, unless the Explorers can end up in the top four and get a first-round bye. "I thought it made us play hard," freshman Jerrell Wright, who had a team-high 15 points, said of a rough loss last weekend at Fordham.

WASHINGTON - Langston Galloway scored 18 points and keyed a decisive 21-2 first half run as St. Joseph's held on for a 73-66 win over George Washington on Saturday. Daryus Quarles added 15 points for the Hawks (18-10, 8-5 Atlantic 10 Conference), combining with Galloway to score 15 straight points in the first half and turn a one-point deficit into a 29-11 lead with 5:47 remaining. Carl Jones scored 16 points and drained a three-pointer with 1 minute, 50 seconds left for a 67-60 lead after the Colonials pulled within four points.

THERE ARE times when good teams just have to find a way, even in games when, on paper, you wouldn't have figured they'd really need to. Temple has been playing like a team trying to show it belongs in the Top 25, having won six straight, the last five by an average of 17.6 points. And the Owls were home, where they almost never lose. George Washington had lost four in a row, and its lone road win had come just before Thanksgiving. So, naturally, the Owls came out last night as if they thought tipoff was at 7 o'clock instead of 6. And with 4 minutes, 19 seconds left, they trailed by seven, after being down by as many as 15 early in the second half.

It had all the signs of a humiliating loss for Temple. Junior guard Khalif Wyatt didn't start after showing up late for study hall. The Owls were having a tough time stopping George Washington's Lasan Kromah. To make matters worse, the struggling Colonials had a 10-point cushion with 5 minutes, 9 seconds left. But that's when Wyatt took over. The Norristown High graduate sparked a game-ending 22-5 run to lift the Owls to a 79-72 Atlantic Ten victory Wednesday night at the Liacouras Center.

Home court has never been an advantage for La Salle as it has been this season. The Explorers recorded their 13th straight victory, dating back to last season, at Tom Gola Arena with a 78-63 triumph against George Washington on Wednesday night. The Atlantic Ten win also enabled La Salle (15-6, 4-2 A-10) to tie the record for the most single-season wins (11) at the arena, which was set during the 2008-09 season. The Explorers also have their longest winning streak at home since winning a school-record 19 straight, from Feb. 28, 1968, to Jan. 2, 1970.