101 Year old Celebrates with ride on Harley

Posted: June 6, 2007

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Ride of a lifetime: Rochester woman cruises in a sidecar to celebrate 101 years

By ADAM D. KRAUSS

Democrat Staff Writer

akrauss@fosters.com

Mike Ross/Chief photographer

ROCHESTER — Lura Johnson loves to ride.

She's never been one to turn down a trip to the town dump, and in her 80s she would commandeer the family riding lawn mower for the afternoon.

When daughter Ellie White was a kid, Johnson "hopped on my bicycle and rode it into the hedge." Last year, when Johnson turned 100, she went for a motorcycle ride — in the rain.

But none of that was enough.

Just days before she turns 101, the widow and mother of two, grandmother of five, great-grandmother of 10 and great-great-grandmother of three hit the road again — this time on a sunny but cool Monday.

It was a made-for-TV moment as the former Farmington resident left the parking lot of the Harley-Davidson Shop of Rochester around 10 a.m., her full head of snow-white hair hidden under a heavy black helmet, her frail bones wrapped in a colorful blanket to guard her from the wind.

With three generations of family and women with the Ageless Dreamers Foundation looking on, Johnson sat in the sidecar of a thundering Road King Police Special destined for New Durham. Mike Griffin, the Harley store manager, was on the bike.

Ready for the trip?

"Anytime," she replied.

White said "that's typical of her spirit, the way she's been all her life."

The ride lasted about a half-hour. When Johnson returned, she was smiling, in no rush to get out of the sidecar. She coughed a little, the only sign she recently recovered from pneumonia.

Her family and others expressed pleasure and awe. Watching Johnson makes "you feel there's a lot of hope and possibility," said Laurie Widmark, founder of Ageless Dreamers, a nonprofit that "makes dreams come true for our oldest generation."

"You look at a birthday cake with candles — that's one thing," she said. "But this is the celebration."

Griffin offered Johnson the sidecar ride last year, and he said he was more than happy to do it again. "I hope somebody's around to offer me a ride when I'm 100," he said.

During last year's ride in the rain, he said, "I asked her if she wanted to go back and she said, 'No, I've been through the Depression and World War II. I'm not going to melt. I want to keep going.'"

Johnson, a resident of the Riverside Rest Home in Dover, arrived by van around 9:45 a.m. She emerged in a wheelchair, clutching a "Live To Ride" faux street sign and wearing her black "biker hat."

Johnson's family said she's always had a thing for riding motorcycles, possibly rooted in the time her parents told a then-twentysomething waitress working at York Beach not to get on motorcycles.

"And guess what she did," her daughter said.

LURA JOHNSON who will turn 101 years old on Saturday, took a ride in a Harley-Davidson sidecar Monday. At top, left, she holds a "Live to Ride" sign. At bottom, she's all bundled up for the ride, which was made possible by the Ageless Dreamer Foundation and the Harley-Davidson Shop of Rochester.

Lura Johnson, who will turn 101 years old this Saturday, May 27, 2007, decided for the second year in a row to take a ride in a Harley-Davidson sidecar on Monday.

(Mike Ross/Chief photographer)

*

Related Link:

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070522/FOSTERS01/105220253