Back home, 10 years later

Resslin' Around, by Casey Ressler

"Do you want your usual trim?" the hairdresser asked me last Friday.

"Well, not really. Could you somehow manage to add a few follicles up on top, where I'm balding, maybe take about 30 pounds off my midsection, and make me look like a cross between Ben Affleck and Harrison Ford? By next week?" came my response.

I only need those miracles to happen because this weekend celebrates, for a lack of a worse word, my 10-year high school reunion. It's a weekend I've been looking forward to because I get to see a lot of old friends who I haven't seen in a while, but still, there is some trepidation.

The other day, I was thinking back to when I was a senior in high school. I really didn't have a care in the world, although zits tended to be as paramount as nuclear war. Unlike the horror stories everybody tells, high school wasn't that big of a train wreck. I enjoyed it and all of its awkward moments -- first girlfriends, first jobs, a first beer, a first everything. It was a time of trying to push the limits to see what you could get away with, and a time to do all of the things teen-agers do, without any major ramifications.

I was trying to think about what my goals were back then -- when I allegedly had my life mapped out, and knew everything about the world, even though I was 17 and didn't have a clue about anything. I knew I was headed to Michigan State University, and after that, I was going to be a sportswriter at a major newspaper. If everything worked out exactly as planned, in about six years following high school, I would be covering the Philadelphia Phillies, or maybe the Denver Broncos, for a newspaper, I thought.

Isn't it funny how life teaches you things along the way?

I did do a couple of those things -- I went to MSU, and I became a sportswriter for three years. The Frontiersman isn't exactly the Philadelphia Inquirer, so I guess I only get half credit on that last one. But so many other things happened to me -- and I'm guessing every other person headed back to their 10-year, 20-year or 30-year reunion -- that have made life so enjoyable.

Ten years ago, I never would have thought about how a smile and a kiss from my 19-month-old daughter would melt my heart. I couldn't have imagined that having a family means more than any big-time, fancy-pants job title would.

Now, those things make me swell with pride more than anything else I could have accomplished along the way.

In high school, I couldn't wait to leave this place. In college, I couldn't wait to return. That's because this place is home.

I'm reminded of that every day I see Pioneer Peak on my way to work. I'm reminded of it on long summer afternoons spent casting dryflies to rising trout with a good friend. I think about it every time my family packs up the truck and heads out camping for the weekend.

Those moments are what makes Alaska, and the Valley in general, so appealing to me and thousands others who call this place home.

Have I done what I set out to do 10 years ago? Well, not exactly. But I wouldn't trade my life for anything -- not even the editor's chair at Sports Illustrated.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor. He's been waiting months to use the term "fancy-pants" in a column.