Happiness on two wheels - Winnipeg Free Press
It had been a few years since my last trip to Canadian Motorcycle on Main Street, but the moment the door closed behind me, it was apparent things hadn't changed one bit. The path that begins at the front door still winds its way to the back of the shop, and the owner, 74-year-old Joe Sawtus, is still sitting in the exact same spot behind the counter that he has been inhabiting since 1970. "Right on, guy," he says... Joe got his start with motorcycles way back in 1944 at only 11 years old, riding on his older brother Bill's small British army bike, a Frances-Barnett model. Bill, who was a motorcycle instructor with the Winnipeg Light Infantry Division during the Second World War, was 16 years older than Joe, and treated him as much like a nephew as a kid brother. By age 12 Joe was roaring around on Bill's massive 1942 Harley-Davidson every chance he could get. In the spring of 1949, still a few months shy of his sixteenth birthday, Joe was itching to get his first real job. "There was a guy in our neighbourhood a few years older than me who had been fired from his job at Moore's Taxi for riding one of the. Source: autos.winnipegfreepress.com
