78-летний пенсионер Джейм Лайл зарабатывает на жизнь, путешествуя по штату Вашингтон в школьном автобусе и затачивая ножи

When Jim Lyle decided to put an edge on retirement, he bought a used school bus and hit the road with Betty, a beautician’s mannequin head that sports human hair. Now, at 78 and seven years later, Lyle revels in the slice of life he’s carved out. “If it cuts, I probably sharpen it,” he said, reciting his “Very Sharp” mobile business motto. “I use Betty to test stylists’ hair shears that I sharpen.” Betty is mounted in the rear of the bus, next to a secondhand dialysis chair where Lyle often sits to hone edges — and sometimes naps during business lulls. “It goes down almost flat,” he said while demonstrating. “I’ve slept real well in it.” Calling Colfax his home, Lyle pilots the old Richland School District 30-foot yellow Freightliner over an expansive circuit. “I have customers in Lewiston, Clarkston, Asotin, Walla Walla, Ellensburg, Moses Lake, Sandpoint, Coeur d’Alene, the Spokane area.” He usually parks the bus at markets and other venues for the day. On this day, he was stationed with a sandwich board welcoming sign at the Latah County Fairgrounds in Moscow, during the popular Tuesday Market. “I get here early,” he said while contemplating how to sharpen an antique sword a customer had just dropped off. Another customer, 4-H leader Becca Runyan of Potlatch, climbed aboard to retrieve a set of sheep shearing blades. She, her 12-year-old daughter Brooklyn and Lyle exchanged pleasantries, then money, and finally a few stories about the necessity for sharp sheep shears. “We’re picking up all our blades,” Becca said. “We use them on all our sheep and goats,” added Brooklyn. Handing Brooklyn the sharpened instruments, Lyle hearkened back to a similar childhood. “I was the son of a sheepherder. We lived near Union Center, down around Boyer Park. The family ran 20,000 head clear up into the early ’60s.” Like most boys back then, Lyle had a pocketknife. “And my granddad got tired of sharpening it. So when I was 5, he started me on oil stones.” To this day, Lyle said, he prefers the old-fashioned way of putting an edge on a knife. “There’s nothing more therapeutic for me than a dull knife on an oil stone. It’s something about the rhythm and the feel and hearing that blade grind against the stone.” But there’s little money in such nostalgia. So Lyle has pursued the leading edge of the sharpening trade — which means using a variety of grinding and sharpening tools and machines on a vast array of cutting implements. “Hunting knives, kitchen cutlery, lawnmower blades, axes, swords, chainsaws, hoes, shovels, brush hogs, you name it.” Lyle usually charges by the sharpened inch. “So, if you’ve got a 3-inch, three-blade pocket knife, it’s going to cost you nine bucks.” Utility scissors generally cost $10. “Now, when you get into hair shears,” Lyle said, “they’re a whole different animal.” Depending on the style of hair shears, he charges $20 to $65. He snipped at Betty’s brunette strands to demonstrate the utility of freshly sharpened shears. “She’ll have a much shorter haircut in a couple years.” Lyle retired after a life of working a variety of jobs, his last employer being Spokane Seed out of Colfax. “As far as a lifelong job,” he quipped, “I haven’t figured that out yet.” Going mobile in a gutted-out school bus, Lyle said, initially kept him from getting under his wife Bonnie’s feet. But sadly, Bonnie died last November. They’d been married 56 years. “We had a good run. Now, with her gone, this business is a reason to get up in the morning. It keeps me moving.” He described a typical customer as someone who will bring him a kitchen block full of dull knives. “You could literally ride them to New York and back and not worry about cutting yourself,” he said. “But I get them to where they’ll slice paper and shave hair.” While he’s always been wired to keep tools sharp, Lyle said a touch of boredom sparked the business idea. Then requests from family and friends ignited it. “A friend would say, ‘Can you sharpen my knife?’ And I’d say yeah, and he’d say, well, can you sharpen this lawnmower blade?” Lyle recalled. “And it just kind of snowballed.” Recently, Lyle reinvested some of his earnings in a three-day tutorial with expert hair-shear sharpener Alexander Lee of Portland. “It’s a real science, sharpening hair shears. He charged me $1,000 a day to look over my shoulder and watch me sharpen shears. I have some secrets now.” To prove it, Lyle turned to Betty again with freshly honed shears. Snip-snip. Tiny bits of hair fell to the bus floor. Lyle smiled. “Best money I ever spent.” Johnson is a retired Lewiston Tribune reporter.