Thoughts Happen

Not Your Mother's Librarian

Librarian is not the occupation you think of first when meeting Laurie Knodle. High-end realtor, event coordinator or aerobics instructor perhaps, but librarian? Her lively personality, stylish outfits and megawatt smile don’t fit the mold of the quiet, dowdy book maven. Yet Laurie has been at the Rancho Santa Fe Library in North County San Diego for the past 12 years. A popular children’s librarian, Laurie has been known to sport a balloon animal hat, wrangle a very frisky visiting sled dog, and probably sneaks turns at Dance Dance Revolution during teen time. “We don’t shush here, we get shushed,” she joked. She is all about fun, but also has a serious passion for turning kids on to books.

 A mother of three children ages 23, 21 and 19, she first volunteered at their school library, starting the Everyone A Reader program at OPE Elementary. Eventually her kids outgrew the school library, “But I didn’t,” she said, which led to volunteering at Rancho Santa Fe. “I started out shelving books, doing crafts, walking the dog—I loved it,” she said. (Many libraries use therapy dogs that children read aloud to.) Six years ago she became a part-time children’s librarian, funded through the Rancho Santa Fe Library Guild.

What impressed me about Laurie when I started taking my daughter to the Rancho Santa Fe Library was that she remembered the books my daughter had read and always made a point to tell us when new horse books came in or American Girl books or whatever her current interest was. And she talks directly to the kids, asking their opinion of the books they read and joking around with them. It’s all part of her secret strategy to get them hooked on books.

“So many kids that are shy, they would never presume to ask you a question. They don’t think they should go over to you, so when I tease or joke with them, it puts them at ease, lets them know that they can ask questions. If you can get kids to love books, especially as kindergardeners or 1st-graders and get them their own library card, that’s wonderful.”

Keeping up with the ever-changing selection is a challenge. “I read a lot of kid's books,” she said, “and I try to read all the award winners. The YA (young adult) books are the hardest to keep up with—I’ll read the first in a series and I also read reviews on Amazon.” While making sure that books are age appropriate, her philosophy is, “Whatever they will pick up and read—let ‘em.” This applies to the current craze of vampire related books and anything else kids request. “We want them to get so they make a point to come here and feel like it is their library.”

Laurie loves being a children’s librarian and couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. “Being around little kids keeps you young mentally. I’m just about their maturity—and they know it!” she laughed.

[When I interviewed Laurie for this post she made me promise to link to the San Diego County Library web site and let you know that you can access all 30 libraries in the system, get homework help, download audiobooks ... this woman is on a mission!]

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.

A Place Called Home

Our guest was quiet, unassuming, and soft-spoken—characteristics I wouldn’t automatically associate with a member of a rousing African gospel vocal band. But there he was, sitting in my living room watching CNN. How I came to have a houseguest from Tanzania is a matter of good luck and timing. The New Life Band is touring the U.S. this fall, raising money for a much-needed secondary school in their hometown, and had a scheduled stop at our church; when our pastor asked for host families for the band members for a few nights I volunteered right away. After all, how many chances would we get to offer hospitality to someone from halfway around the world?

For three months the band is touring at the rate of regular rock stars, maybe moreso—I don’t think Blink 182 gets up at dawn to get ready for three Sunday services in addition to a demanding nighttime concert schedule. And what a concert. Anyone who can get a churchful of Lutherans to get up and dance has got some pretty powerful mojo going on. They pulled it off because they believe in what they are doing and don’t have to manipulate their audience; joy and genuineness just exudes from them. They were simply being themselves, and we all got swept up in the fun of it. They even sing a Swahili version of "How Great Thou Art," which should seem pretty apropos to anyone who read my August post about that particular hymn.

So it came to be that Gabriel, who has been with the band for 30 years (wow), had dinner with us Tuesday night. I picked him up at the church and drove back to our house, and as I pulled into the driveway our new motion-sensor light over the garage door came on. Making small talk, I noted how much I liked the new light, because sometimes it’s really dark outside when we get home.

Over dinner we asked him questions about Tanzania, trying to strike a balance between not being too nosy yet not wanting to waste this opportunity to learn about somewhere so foreign from a local. Yet the more we talked, the less foreign Tanzania started to seem and the more it seemed like just a place people call home, where parents raise their kids, worry about them getting good jobs, hope the weather improves for the crops next year.

During our conversation it came up that a lot of people in the villages in Tanzania don’t have electricity, and even some people in the city don’t have it. They use kerosene lamps and schedule their lives around daylight hours. I thought back to my comment about the garage light and how that might sound to someone who lives without electricity. And then I tried to imagine the velvety blackness of someone’s hometown in Africa after dark, a place someone not so different from me would call home. 

Joe Sass—One Sharp Man

“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.

Hope is a clean two-piece suit

It wasn’t so much the sign reading “FREE CLEANING One Time Job Interview: 2Pc suit, shirt, and tie,” that caught my eye so much as what was written below it: “Good luck!” heavily underlined in black marker. It seemed a silent beacon of hope tucked between the 99 Cent Store and a nail salon in this ubiquitous Southern California strip mall.

The owner of New Life Cleaners is a soft-spoken, professional older man with a rim of close-cropped white hair and a distinct accent who always says, “Thank you and have a good day,” in a way that makes you believe he really means it. So I lingered awhile today after dropping off my order to get to know my neighbor in the cleaning business a little better and to ask him about that sign.

I learned that his name is Joe, that he has run this Encinitas store with his wife Mary since 1994, but has been in the dry cleaning business for over 27 years, previously running stores in San Diego and La Mesa. And I was surprised to learn that he has an MBA and a Ph.D.

Turns out Joe is from Iran. He was 35 when he came to the US for graduate school, but just after finishing his Ph.D. the Iranian revolution happened and there was a little situation with some American hostages. “After the revolution, it was really hard for Iranians to find suitable jobs,” he said. “A lot of us started our own business.”

Despite that setback, Joe and his family have done well. He and Mary have two grown children: a son who is a CPA and a daughter with a nursing degree, and four grandchildren. I asked him how business is going this year. “It’s doing all right,” he said. “Not like last year or the year before, but I have a lot of repeat customers since 1994. Most people, when they come here, they don’t go anywhere. People move to San Diego and still they come here. I also have customers from Carlsbad and Del Mar.”

So I asked him about the sign. “It was not my idea,” he said. “My wife Mary was watching TV and saw some cleaners in New York were doing it, so we asked, ‘Why not we?’” He put the sign up about five weeks ago and has since gotten a few takers.

“We believe in new life,” said Joe, in reference to his business name. “And also we give your clothes new life.”

This is the first 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.