BLOGFINGER RE-RUNS. This feature is from August, 2011:
Mike Pallotta, the knife sharpener
By Paul Goldfinger (photos and text). Editor @Blogfinger
We heard the odd ringing of a bell. It was much different from the ice cream man’s. It could have been a tug boat bell, but there are no boats around here except for the swan boats, and they run silent.
Then we spotted an old green truck parked at Main and Delaware. It was Mike the knife sharpener. It was his bell. People told me about him in the past and said that we should do an article about him, however he wasn’t in the phone book, and I never spotted him in the Grove. But I never forgot about him and today I got lucky.
Mike Pallotta of Elmont, Long Island is in the family business. His dad started sharpening knives, scissors and other tools in 1941 in Brooklyn, New York. Mike still drives his dad’s 1941 Chevy truck with the wooden interior. Although Mike’s main job is director of security at a high school in Long Island, he comes to the shore every summer with the truck and stays with a friend in Avon. His wife comes down on weekends, and today Mike is accompanied by his grandson Frank Pallotta, who is a high school sophomore.
Frank likes to pose for photos and he, like Mike, is a big smiler. Frank helps out in a variety of ways, but one of his jobs is to keep an eye on Princess, an old dog who doesn’t seem to know any tricks. Her job is just to hang around and look content.
Mike and Frank spend their summer days going to shore towns to sharpen knives, garden tools, and scissors. The truck is equipped with original 100-year-old stone grinder wheels. Mike says that the ability to do the job properly is mostly about know-how.
People come to the truck window and hand their knives to Frank. Mike, a friendly bear-like guy, begins to grind away. He is focused because this is dangerous work. Sparks fly off the grinder. Frank gets the job of honing the finish.
While the customers wait, they chat and marvel at the sight of the truck and Mike and his vintage equipment. Somebody recalls the iceman. Somebody else remembers the peripatetic knife sharpeners ringing their bells on the streets of New York. We met William Schlenger, an artist, who was admiring the hand-painted lettering on the side of the truck. He had no knives to sharpen; he just wanted to wax nostalgic about painting trucks the old fashioned way.
Mike tells us that he spends a great deal of time in Manhattan in the winter because those fabric cutters in the Garment District depend on properly sharpened scissors.
Eileen had a bunch of her kitchen knives sharpened. Mike insisted that she carry them away on a tray because they are ultra-sharp. He demonstrates by making neat slices out of a small stack of paper.
You can’t make an appointment with this old-style craftsman. He comes into the Grove every few weeks in the summer. You just have to get lucky.
Here’s Bobby Darin with Mack the Knife: