“Joe Sass” —it slices through the air like a jackknife, and should be a character in a Damon Runyon story—a small, shifty guy with a dark hat pulled over his forehead casting furtive glances.
But the real Joe Sass is as far from shifty as you can imagine. A trim man with copper-colored hair, tan complexion, clear blue eyes and a southerner’s courteous manner, you’ll find him every Thursday outside the Encinitas Henry’s with his Pro Sharpening Service booth, offering same-day sharpening on everything from kitchen knives to pick axes to kids’ safety scissors.
Over the years I’ve dropped off knives for sharpening and been impressed with the service. But more than that I’ve noticed that Sass not only loves what he does but also imbues every action with refreshing genuineness and shows care and respect for everyone he encounters.
As I pulled into the Henry’s parking lot last Thursday his equipment table was set up next to a crate of watermelons with bins of tools and bundles of knives nearby. A portable radio played “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” and a basket of hard candies sat next to it invitingly.
I asked Sass how he got into this line of work. “I’ve been sharpening knives over 10 years,” he said. “I was retired, and I came by Henry’s on a Thursday one day and there was a gentleman here in his 70s sharpening knives. He wanted me to help him change a wheel on a sharpening tool. After I helped him he said, ‘Hey you’re pretty good. Would you want to learn how to do this?’ So I said, ‘Sure.’”
Sass trained with him for several years until he passed away, and with the family’s blessing took over the business. And business has been good ever since. “I do shears, lawnmower blades—I do it the same day. Most other places you have to leave your knives, but I’m the only one who does it the same day,” he said. “Henry’s likes me here because I bring customers from all over the county.”
Sass learned early to work with his hands. “My family was poor. You learned to fix things because you had to. When your car breaks down you learn how to fix it. It’s on-the-job training.” He also worked as an electronics technician at HP in Palo Alto after leaving the Navy and had a car dealership in Missouri before moving to Encinitas with his wife Alicia 22 years ago.“I’m pretty good with people and their needs and their time limits. Some people want to come and go to Henry’s real quick, so I try to sneak them in if they’re busy. I hustle. I’ve been hustling since 8:30 this morning.”
I can vouch for the service’s popularity. In the 15 minutes I was there, one man pulled up in his pickup, asking “Do you do garden tools?” through his open window, and two other customers dropped off knives. One was clearly a regular, and the other, a well-dressed middle-aged woman with a knife block in a department store shopping bag, seemed a first-timer. When she apologetically pulled out a squatty butcher cleaver explaining, “The rest of these are good, but this one is cheap. Is it even worth sharpening?,” he immediately put her at ease, saying, “Oh, definitely. Every knife has its purpose.”
I asked if his business was impacted by the economy, and he said not really. “In this economy people are cutting back on things like going out to dinner, so they are doing more of their own cooking, doing their own gardening, and you need good tools to do it with.”
Joe Sass’s Sharpening Service is at Henry’s in Encinitas every Thursday from 9am - 4pm and at the Ace Hardware in Carmel Valley every Monday from 9am-4pm.
This is one in an occasional series of posts called Our Neighbors. We interact with so many people in our day-to-day lives; Our Neighbors is for getting to know them a little bit better. If you have a neighbor you would like to write about, email me for information on guest blogging.
