Born to be wild

Noaki Schwartz

Alice Wheaton may think twice the next time she tells her daughter what

she wants for her birthday.

Following a respectable tea party with friends, the 80-year-old was told

to get ready for her ride on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

“You asked me to go for a ride for your birthday,” said Wheaton’s

daughter, Katie Voss. “You have to be careful what you ask for.”

Wearing black jeans, a Harley T-shirt, bandanna and goggles, the lovable

biker granny joined a gang of motorcycle fanatics for a ride from her

son’s house in Corona del Mar to Laguna Beach.

In planning for the celebration, Voss had asked her mother what she’d

like to do for her 80th birthday and heard the answer in disbelief. Her

mother had already had two hip replacements and had just recovered from a

fractured bone.

Still, Voss asked around and found a friend who offered to take her

mother for a ride along with a dozen of his Harley buddies. Voss had

heard that on a past vacation decades earlier, her mother took a wild

motorcycle ride through the Italian countryside with a local resident.

“My father was furious,” Voss said, laughing. She added that her mother

had probably tucked that adventure away, always hoping to “let her hair

down” again someday.