Girl Power - Grant

Cal's Teri McKeever, pictured, named coach of the U.S. women's team for the 2012 Olympics, the first woman to be selected for the post. This is McKeever's19th year at Berkeley and during that time she's coached six women who made U.S. Olympic teams and 11 others that represented their countries in the Games. She was named 2009 NCAA women's swimming coach of the year. McKeever's most famous pupil is Natalie Coughlin, who will participate in 2012. Photo from the www.

I have a quick turn-around in New York for one meeting, yesterday, which seems to go well. Following the outbound flight, I jog Riverside Park on a freezing late afternoon and wonder, as I often do without, why my camera not to hand? A red barge slowly climbs the Hudson aided by a tug-boat; cars whiz along the West Side highway and across the river : New Jersey, poor souls, regarding Manhattan every moment of their lives. Grant's Tomb, at 121 and Riverside Drive, presents a distraction : I have passed 100s of times but never inside .. so there it be, the large, polished oak encasement with, presumably, Ulysses S. Grant inside. Grant lived from 1822 to 1885 and an American Civil War General and 18th President of the United States. His eternity not alone as, next to him in an equally impressive casket, his wife Julia Dent Grant (1826–1902). The elderly park ranger notes that the monument not especially popular for New York - about 100,000 visitors a year - and is opened 365 days excluding Christmas and New Years. He goes back to his book. Flags half-mast in remembrance of Pearl Harbor.

"In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins. "
--Ulysses S. Grant