In 1974 Lou Reed wrote and recorded a song entitled “Ride Sally Ride,” which was released on an album called “Sally Can’t Ride.” Since Lou Reed had never heard of Sally K. Ride take off, and as the shuttle blasted her baby into the sky she cried, “Thank God for Gloria Steinem!”īut the most telling piece of evidence is the Lou Reed song, which, unaccountably, is not even mentioned in the People article. I happened to see a film clip on TV of Mrs. Mom is also something of a feminist, apparently. According to People, Sally’s mother, Joyce Ride, devotes her spare time to “serving as a counsellor at the women’s county jail,” a dead giveaway that she has a bleeding heart. She started college at Swarthmore, which points in a pretty clear direction, don’t you think? Even after she transferred to Stanford (which she did because Stanford has a better tennis team, not because Stanford has the Hoover Institution), she studied not only physics but also English (“because Shakespeare intrigued her,” writes People). I have been studying the details of her life story in People, and though there is nothing directly about her politics, there are certain clues. Ride, which is no good because the Times stupidly refuses to employ this useful honorific), is a Democrat. Ride, which is no good because if she’s Mrs. Ride, as The New York Times calls her (thus avoiding having to call her Miss Ride, which is no good because she’s married, or Mrs. Possibly you are wondering how I know that Dr. Here’s this week’s prediction: the belle of the 1997 Inaugural Ball will be the President of the United States herself, Sally K. The reason she didn’t, I suspect, was also the reason she was not only “reserved and reticent” but was also-the Times obit again-“known for guarding her privacy” and was described by a friend (who said, “I had to interrogate her to find out what was happening in her personal life”) as “elusive and enigmatic, protective of her emotions.” Ride did not do, though, was what I, for one, had hoped she would do: rocket into political orbit, as John Glenn (D-Ohio) and Harrison Schmitt (R-New Mexico) did so successfully. Boisjoly, who died in January, said her gesture had helped sustain him during a troubled time.” She was the only panelist to offer him support. Ride, who was known to be reserved and reticent, publicly hugged him. “After his testimony,” noted the Times’ s obituarist, Denise Grady, “Dr. On the Challenger panel, she behaved honorably toward the witness Roger Boisjoly, an engineer sent to Coventry for revealing that he had warned the higher-ups about the faulty O-rings that caused the explosion.

Ride song