Some Sunny Day:

An Homage

“…if you do this it'll help you
Some sunny day"
Oh, yeah

Oh, take your time, don't live too fast
Troubles will come and they will pass
You'll find a woman, yeah, and you'll find love
And don't forget son there is someone up above

And be a simple kind of man
Oh, be something you love and understand…”

(Lyrics from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man)

His first splash into the working life was washing dishes at a local restaurant. Then he filled a job as a service station attendant.  That was back in the days when they pumped gas, looked under the hood, cleaned your windshield, and also handed out steak knives and glass tumbler awards to regular customers.    Working the early morning shift before school, he vividly remembers getting his first full paycheck and not being able to think of anything else except of depositing it in his newly opened account. It was pure joy when he did. No wonder his next job was at an actual bank.  His bank job took him through college.  Once I stood in his teller’s line and attempted to deposit a million kisses.  Apparently, you can’t deposit those; I was informed by this professional young man who barely broke a smile when he read my deposit slip during my attempted transaction.

He left banking when he graduated and moved all the way up I-5 near the Canadian border where there weren’t that many job opportunities.  He tried a job at an aggressive finance company and quickly knew it wasn’t the job for him. It involved putting people into loans under conditions he would wisely never do for himself.   He didn’t last long in this role and it still bugs him that there are companies that do this to people.

When I married Dan, I knew I was not marrying him for his money, nor his drive for material things. Dan had things about him that were very ethereal and counterculture which I found inspiring, intriguing and refreshing.  He was, as the song says, “a simple kind of man, one that didn’t run after rich man’s gold.” This stressed my parents out who weren’t so sure about the union for these very reasons.   But as we drove away from our wedding in Dan’s very used old Dodge Colt, he had me open his ratty old glove compartment. In it was a gift with a promise of provision and care no matter what.  Then off we went to Carmel and Hawaii, which we call our “money-moon” because it cost well beyond what we’d ever spent together up to that point.

Before our marriage, I had made substantially more money than Dan had, but Dan had substantially more in his savings than me.  He couldn’t figure that out and if he’d though about it, might have left me at the altar.   “You buy something every day?” he asked with great concern and disbelief a few weeks into our marriage.  “Hmmm, you don’t?”  And this would be a discussion that continues even today in some form.

While in in the Northwest, Dan picked up an accounting & computer science degree at Western Washington University to add to his already achieved UC Davis Economics and Spanish minor degrees. He joked that if he got any more degrees, he’d be a thermometer.  Yes, Dan made “Dad jokes” well before he was a Dad, and would always leave a trail of reluctant guffaws in every workplace he passed through.

A fluke recruiting process at WWU gave Dan the chance to get a free flight back to his hometown in Livermore to interview at the Lawrence National Livermore Laboratory.   He ended up getting a great offer and we took the opportunity to move back near our families to raise our family.

Soon it was the 90’s and the dotcom craze started offering extremely enticing job opportunities.  Stock options where one might become a millionaire?  Free breakfast, lunch and dinners?  Massage services?  All the vacation days you need? The Apple was definitely sitting there as a big temptation, and many went for it.  But Dan was not one for a long commute (unless he could ride his bike) and preferred to have breakfast, lunch and dinner with his young family as well as be available to coach his kids’ sports teams.  Dan worked to have life and never lived to work.   

When he got a chance that made sense with family life, he did make a few moves.  First Nextel. Then, Hexcel. (It clearly had to rime with LLNL to be considered) Because of the possibilities of needing to relocate, ten years later, Dan was back to riding his bike to LLNL. 

LLNL is a high security facility, so I never got to go on site except for the rare official “Family Day.” What Dan did every day was somewhat a mystery to me beyond “computer stuff.”   Then came the pandemic and Dan moved home to work at our dining room table. For three years.  

I didn’t love Dan working at the dining room table all this time.  But I loved the opportunity, after over 40 years of life together,  to witness, up close and first-hand, working-Dan.  I long suspected what working-Dan was like but now I know for sure. What I saw was this: Dan is an extremely responsible and hard worker.  He is diligent beyond measure and honest to a fault. He’s super smart, has an amazing memory and an incredible ability to track a vast array of important intricate details in his head for long period of time.   He is a no-nonsense problem solver and efficient with his time. Unlike me, he values a paucity of words and facilitates short meetings. More importantly, he is kind and patient in his dealings, leaving behind not just a trail of corny jokes but a network of colleagues as friends.

All this leading up to today.  Happy Retirement Day Dan!  Thank you for always being “something you love and understand”, and I do too, It’s certainly “some sunny day”  for us now. Now let’s go have fun.