“How’s everything in Sunny Vale?”
—Bill Lluoma
My dad would always come home
from his job at the IG Farben (Reichold
Chemicals really) & ask, “How’s
every thing in Sunny Vale?” some-
times it would become “Happy Dale”
but i think it was always some private
joke, some strange form of irony—like
he wasn’t really expecting anything
to be either Sunny or Happy. I don’t
think my mother ever ‘got it.’ I like
to think that i did. But i was 8. What
was there ‘to get’ anyway? It was after
the donut shop but before the lawn
business. & by the time he was
working for DRAVO he had given
it up entirely, for more realistic
utterances like, “I was in meetings
all day so I couldn’t get any work
done.” & i like to think that i’m older
now than he was then, but i know
that’s not true, even if i don’t do the math.
But i will be someday. That’s how it goes
you know. You get older & there’s nothing
left of you but the empty shell of a joke.