JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. -- Shoppers go to the mini-mall here for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they need to buy something for their uniform at the military clothing store, or send a package using UPS Inc. They might want to get a sandwich at Blimpie's, or some electronic entertainment at Gamestop.
Those with knives in need of sharpening, however, walk into the mini-mall to see Al Furnish, a kindly-looking, white-haired man who resembles a thinner version of Santa Claus.
For only three dollars per blade, Furnish transforms a dull knife into a razor-sharp cutting implement.
As he works, Furnish likes talking to his customers, and especially enjoys making them laugh. He draws from a wealth of different experiences in his life in conversation.
Furnish has been a fixture at the mini-mall for the past eight years. He has taken a long road to get here.
Raised in Buckley, Wash., Furnish served four years in the Marine Corps, from 1957-1961.
"I served a few years after [the Korean War] and a few years before Vietnam really took off," Furnish said. "It just worked out that way."
"It was a whole different world back then. A lot of the men I knew had joined under the ultimatum that they could join the service or go to jail. When you deployed -- if you deployed, you went to the dock and got on a ship. We didn't deploy on planes back then," Furnish said.
Furnish spent two years at Camp Pendleton, Calif. in a mortar platoon before being transferred to serve as a gate guard at Naval Station Bremerton.
"Bremerton was close to home. I had an old '49 Ford and I used to drive home on the weekends. We didn't have the freeways, so I had to travel on local roads. I used to pay 50 cents to use the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Now it costs four dollars," Furnish said.
After serving in the military, Furnish worked a wide variety of different jobs.
"I was a jack of all trades," Furnish said, listing stops in Alaska, San Diego, Seattle and Idaho along the way. His resume, if he had one, says he worked in a fish cannery, in the airline and shipping industries, as well as being a school custodian and working in a silver mine.
"Finally, I went down to Arizona, and I became a deputy sheriff and a corrections officer. From that job, I went to be a guard at the Arizona State Prison in Florence, Arizona," Furnish said.
When his father's health began to deteriorate, he returned home and finally retired when he began collecting Social Security.
Furnish, however, was not content to stay idle for long. He went to a woodcarving class and found that he enjoyed it.
He has entered his carvings into competitions at the Western Washington Fair, and other fairs, and has won ten blue ribbons for his creations.
"I don't enter the competitions anymore, though. It's time to give somebody else a chance," Furnish said.
Even with his new hobby, Furnish still wanted something else to do. He began working as a concessionaire for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service.
"Now that I'm retired, I work here three days of the week, and that's about all I can stand of this place. Then I go home for four days of the week, and that's about all I can stand of that place," Furnish joked.
"I started doing this to support the troops. When I first started here, I really didn't know how to sharpen a knife. I really sweated out each knife," Furnish said.
"That's why I have people pay after they inspect my work. That was almost my motto at first, and it just hung on. It took me a long time to really figure out how to sharpen a knife, but I learned that I had to take a personal interest in every knife, because the troops do. That's their knife, and if it's still dull, they'll let me know in a heartbeat," Furnish said.
"I only charge three dollars, just enough to cover my expenses. I don't do this to make money off of it. I do it because I like meeting the Soldiers," Furnish said.
When he isn't sharpening knives or talking to customers, Furnish frequently takes out a block of wood and begins carving. He gives most of these carvings to customers.
"When I first came to work here, one of the other concessionaires came up to me, completely serious, and said 'Al, don't you dare joke around with these Soldiers. They're trained killers, and they don't like it.' That was eight years ago, and I'm still here now," Furnish said.
"I enjoy coming out here, I really do. I enjoy talking to the troops, and rapping with them, and kidding with them, and joking with them, and picking on them," Furnish said. "I've got the same corny jokes, and I've been telling them for years, but I get a new audience every ten minutes."
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