Knife sharpener

[OnMyWay]

I have never seen this.  A guy has knife sharpening business on a trike.

[Jake]

He probably did an excellent job too.  

 

Edited July 10, 2020 by Jake

[OnMyWay]

34 minutes ago, Jake said:

He probably did an excellent job too.  

 

I'm not sure, but it appeared that he was working on the same knife the whole time I was there, waiting for my wife.  Very patiently sliding the knife back and forth across the wheel.

[Gator]

I’ve seen a guy in Angeles doing the same, but he was on a pedal type trike. Had a nice little set up. No idea how much he earns, but have to admire his entrepreneurial spirit. 

[Yeochief]

7 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

that he was working on the same knife the whole time I was there

I would want to look busy so folks would know what I'm doing.  Just sitting around doing nothing might give folks the ideal that I'm not open for business.

[OnMyWay]

8 minutes ago, Yeochief said:

I would want to look busy so folks would know what I'm doing.  Just sitting around doing nothing might give folks the ideal that I'm not open for business.

Good point.  That might be his "show" knife.

[Joey G]

They were around in the USA as well, around the same time there was shoemaker in every neighborhood and milk was delivered to your house in glass bottles... circa  pre-1965. 

[manofthecoldland]

4 hours ago, Joey G said:

They were around in the USA as well, around the same time there was shoemaker in every neighborhood and milk was delivered to your house in glass bottles... circa  pre-1965. 

Born right after the War, in a Wisconsin industrial  city, into a mixed neighborhood of German, Polish, Italian etc. ancestry, I loved taking the family shoes to the nearest shoe repair shop. The aromas of worked leather, glues and polishes stays etched in memory. Resoling was the main business then since good leather shoes cost quite a bit and it was worth resoling them. Men's and women's shoes were resewn, glued and nailed where needed. Metal lasts and a large lathe with a variety of wheels were some of the few tools needed. The era ended when cheaper imports started arriving and other materials became mainstays. 

An old man would push his knife sharpening pushcart down our dead end street a few times each summer. One of the large spoke side wheels had an 8" metal bell attached with a clapper that would fall and ring it as it was pushed.  All the many housewives would bring their kitchen utility knives out to him when he came through. Maybe it was easier than getting their husbands to hone them with with a whetstone like we still do here in the PI..... at least my wife does since she cuts up fish and vegetables daily.

People would also save worn out clothing in gunny  sacks.  It was a source of washrags, etc. Every month or two in summer, an old man would travel the alleys with his trucks, which had a scale to weigh and buy the excess rags.  He would idle along, singing out.... "Ah-Raaag,  Ah-Raaag " till someone flagged him down. He'd weigh it and pay you.  Us children would make small money by taking our coaster wagons around to collect old newspapers which people would pile up near their garbage cans/bins and sell them for the pulp value. The last time I did this with my  buddies was around 1960 when we filled up one of the kid's parents unused garage and by then you had to phone the scrap man to come with his truck.  He didn't pay much for the huge load and we quit doing it after that one last time.

We also made small money as children by collecting empty bottles and returning them to the grocery stores  for their deposit value.  2 cents for the 12 0z. and 5 cents for the quart sized coca cola bottles. It saved the housewives from hauling them  back when they did their weekly shopping on their husbands payday.... which was often cash pay packets.

By the early 60's home heating coal was disappearing, but I remember hauling the coal furnace ash buckets every morn for my dad before school, when he cleaned and restoked the coal furnace for the   day so my mother would have a warm house for her homemaking chores. He'd restoke it again when he came home from work. City Ash men would drive down the alleys and open the brick ash bins side door and shovel out the ashes every few weeks.  Heating oil and then natural gas pipelines ended that era and cleaned up the air considerably.  

When the coal trucks came to restock the coal bins, it was as good as watching a circus, for a small child. The trucks had scissor lifts for  the bed load, and the swarthy, sooty coal carriers would put down planks so span any outside stair flights, and then set up portable metal chutes to dump the coal down so it filled the cellar coal bin. The winter's coal arrival was always a spectacle for a small boy. The men had leather shoulder gear and packed the metal rod frames with either leather or canvas sacks up the planks and to the chute. It was a dirty, sooty job.  A lot worse than packing the charcoal sacks from the  trike to the dirty kitchen here in the PI.

Good memories of another bygone age. Glad I lived through it.  A time when a man's muscles earned him his livelihood and women weren't the least bit interested in doing what a man did for a living. Also vice-versa.  

[hk blues]

13 hours ago, Yeochief said:

I would want to look busy so folks would know what I'm doing.  Just sitting around doing nothing might give folks the ideal that I'm not open for business.

Yep...i see this in a portrait painting store in SM - the various artists have all been working on the same portrait for as long as I've been here. The subject won't look like himself now!

[earthdome]

On 7/10/2020 at 8:17 PM, manofthecoldland said:

Good memories of another bygone age. Glad I lived through it.  A time when a man's muscles earned him his livelihood and women weren't the least bit interested in doing what a man did for a living. Also vice-versa.  

Not quite old enough for all of those but did these nostalgic things as a child:

A paper route delivering papers on my bicycle. Stopping at a small gas station halfway through for a 10 cent coke and a 5 cent milky way bar.

Saturday mornings at my Dad's machine shop in the winter hauling in wood and coal for the huge pot bellied stove.

Saturday morning with the local boy scout troop picking up newspapers with a truck for recycle to raise money. Notice that I was involved in profiting from both sides of the deal.

Going fishing in the local creeks and bringing back fish to feed to our pet raccoon Luigi.

Listening to baseball games on the radio while playing wiffle ball.

Building a huge fort using scrap wood in the back corner of a field, then sleeping out with my friends in the fort we built.

No internet, only B&W TV on 3 channels and a party line phone in the house.

Getting a real full sized wood bat during bat day at Wrigley Field. Wish I still had that bat.