THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9509270060
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: MY JOB
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
EVEN THOUGH it's a real grind, nothing's dull about Gene Matthews' job. Dirty, but never dull.
Matthews sharpens things - knives, saws, lawnmower blades. The grinding dust settles in a fine black mist all over his shop, all over his tools, all over him.
His palms are black, his fingernails, too, but not his eyes. They're blue. Steel blue like the metal he hones to a fine, razor edge.
This retired Navy master chief and one-time company VP left the corporate rat race to answer a childhood dream.
``Back in Philly, when I was a kid, a knife sharpener would drive around the streets and ring a bell,'' Matthews said. ``I knew my next job must be something I could do myself.''
He started Gene's Sharpening Service with a van, a mobile sharpening shop he ran for a few years, then moved into the ramshackle building he rents on North Lands-town Road in Virginia Beach.
It's hardly big enough to house a grindstone, much less Matthews, his wife, Pat, and another employee. Built in 1929, it had that old-timey feel he loved.
``Dirt was so thick on the floor we had to shovel it out,'' he said. His little nook of a storefront is a patched together hut with a leaky tin roof and siding. Part of the inside is paneled in golden knotty pine. No running water, no bathroom.
A little sign dangles out from the building and hangs over the road advertising ``Gene's SharpAll Shop.'' When he's not there, a big handsaw flips across the front door and announces that he's ``Closed.''
And that romanticized Philadelphia knife sharpener? He's around. Matthews had a drawing of a tradesman and his grindstone printed up on T-shirts.
Most days, Matthews stands behind a grinding wheel, listening to the high-pitched whine steel makes against the spinning grit of the stone. Bright bits flash away like a Fourth of July sparkler under his workman's hands.
He runs tool grinders, scissor machines and chain-saw sharpeners. Occasionally, he sharpens old tools and makes them usable again, like the box saw somebody brought him recently.
``It's an antique and the man wanted new teeth in it,'' he said, switching on an electric saw filer and letting it screech across each notch in the rusty blade. ``It's a challenge to bring something back. This was his grandfather's saw. You get pleasure from being able to use something like that again.''
But that kind of work isn't Matthews' bread and butter. He sharpens scores of professional tools.
And charges accordingly.
``You have to vary the language to suit the customer,'' he said, leaning across an enormous, curved machete-like knife from India and picking up a pair of scissors. ``Now, beauticians call these shears. And they want you to hone them, not grind.'' Here he got a gleam in his eye. ``When you hone, you can charge more. I used to charge them $3 to grind them. But they said they weren't honed. So now I grind them, charge them $10 and now they're happy.''
Bad weather, especially hurricanes, can spin Matthews' business into high gear. When Felix threatened the area a few weeks ago, customers expecting the worst bought up yards of chain-saw chain.
``We don't do many ax blades anymore. Everybody's got a little McCullough or something to hack a little limb off,'' he said.
September means pet clippers will be arriving soon.
``As soon as the kids go to school and dogs go back into the house, people want them to look good and smell pretty,'' he said, ``and by October the grooming shops will be bringing us their clippers.''
Then come the hunting knives and arrows.
``But I don't want to talk about that,'' Matthews said, shaking his head. Not a hunter himself, he can't stomach the sport.
Just then a woman and her toddler stopped in to drop off a lawnmower blade.
``Cuts like a butter knife,'' the woman complained, laying it on the counter.
Matthews started the paperwork.
The old guy in Philly would crack a grindstone if he could see how Matthews has gone high-tech. The shop's records are on computer; so are the business's shipping labels.
Matthews looks almost apologetic about it.
This throwback to the days of street peddlers looks more comfortable behind the grindstone than the keyboard.
``We have little old people come in here with a hoe. I always tell 'em, sure, I'll sharpen it,'' he said, shrugging. ``And I'll charge 'em a dollar.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
JIM WALKER/Staff
Gene Matthews started Gene's Sharpening Service with a mobile shop,
then moved into the ramshackle building he rents on North Landstown
Road.
by CNB