" Evil Knievil and Awful Knoffel"

I had bought a 1942/45 Harley Davidson war surplus motorcycle from Sun Glow Motorcycle on Queen St. near Spadina, for one hundred dollars and, it had been a Des patch Riders bike during the second war and was as tempermental as all get out, but I loved it just the same.

I used to ride it to work every day, and when I was getting ready to cut out, John S. the old Ukrainian of the previous story said that he had never been on a motorcycle in his life, and would like a ride some day.

Being of the obliging sort myself, I said I will give you a ride home if you like, but remember one thing, and that is I don't have a passenger seat, and you will have to sit on the back fender, John being up to the challenge said OK.

I ask John if he still lives in the Dovercourt and College St. area to which he replies in the affirmative so off we go.

I go north on Bathurst St. to King St. make a left turn and am driving along, and in between the streetcar tracks on King St. when a young guy pulls up beside me with his engine revving up on a rather new Harley, coming to a stop at the lights at Niagara St, engine still revving challenging me to race.

When the light turns green off we go in a cloud of dust, we must have been doing 70 MPH along King St. on the cobblestones between the tracks, when we got to Sudbury St. in front of Massey Ferguson, I peal off and by now am doing 80, MPH up Sudbury St. until we hit Dovercourt Rd. when I had to slow down, because of traffic.

When I drop John off in front of his house he says you sonoma bitch, I will never go on one of those things again.

The next day at work he went on to tell his mates about the wild ride with me, and he never again rode the bike with me but, we went on to be great friends, as most were on the railroad.

Allan