Free Republic

Happy Birthday, June: Fla. woman, 84, gets back on motorcycle again to relive happy memories By TAMARA LUSH , Associated Press BUCKHEAD RIDGE, Fla. — What do you get an 84-year-old lady for her birthday? That's what Carol Brown was thinking a few weeks ago. Her mother, June Pearce, was turning 84. The idea of buying and giving more stuff just didn't appeal to Brown. "When you're 84, what is there?" she thought. Pearce lives in a slow-paced retirement area near Lake Okeechobee in rural Florida. She's been married to the same man, Fred, for 64 years. Pearce is a...

At 83, flying high By EDWARD LEVENSON The Intelligencer On a sunny spring day, Dan Dolack of Hilltown rode his motorcycle to an overlook at Kinzua Bridge State Park in a remote area of northwestern Pennsylvania. He was alone in the park, where tourists used to flock to a 2,000-foot-long railroad viaduct 300 feet above a wooded ravine, until most of the 121-year-old steel structure collapsed in a 2003 tornado. “There were no people at the spot, no dogs, no noise at all. There was no sound of distant car engines. There were no aircraft in the sky, no birds,...

GEORGE BUSH will today announce the deployment of thousands of US troops to the border with Mexico to stem illegal immigration. In a televised address, his first since December, President Bush will hope to repair deep Republican rifts over immigration and restore some momentum to his Administration. He will put fresh emphasis on the need to fix holes in America’s porous border with Mexico, which has helped more than 11 million illegal immigrants to slip into the US in recent years. A package of security measures is expected to include the promise that border areas will be militarised in effect...

Motorcycle Mama By THERESA HOGUE Gazette-Times reporter Assisted living resident finally gets her Harley ride Behind the front desk at Stoneybrook Assisted Living Center sat a pile of leather motorcycle gear and a shiny helmet, hidden from the view of passing residents. Guarding them carefully, administrative assistant Vickie Gregoroff giggled as she waited for resident Beulah Hatter to make her way downstairs for lunch. "I'm just too excited," she said, practically bouncing in her seat. Hatter, 82, has long maintained that she has two things she'd like to do before she died, ride a motorcycle in full gear, and drive...