Let's move Mother's Day to November

Resslin' Around, by Casey Ressler

I love my Mom. I love my mother-in-law. I love my wife, who is a mother as well. Now can I please go fishing without a guilty conscience?

Thanks to my inept planning and lack of organizational skills, this Mother's Day will be spent on the banks of the Talkeetna River, on a float trip with three other guys, none of whom are mothers to the best of my knowledge. But only if my guilty conscience doesn't eat away at me and get me to the point of breaking my fly rod.

In a last-minute scramble to line up an early-season float trip for rainbow trout, the date was settled -- the first weekend in May. In a rare bold move on my part, I booked the trip without consulting my wife -- who controls the checkbook and balances it down to the last penny. It would be hard coming up with $150 with some of my lame excuses for needing some quick cash, so I had to 'fess up.

After she finally agreed that the trip was a necessity, which came after she rolled her eyes a few times, I told her the dates of the trip, and was met by a scowl. We had a firm commitment that weekend, so I frantically called my buddy, who in the meantime had called the guy operating the charter and booked it.

"Bad news. I can't do it the first weekend in May," I told him. "Call him back and try to get any other weekend. Tracy [my wife] said the money thing was cool, kind of, but just not that weekend. The weekend before or the weekend after are perfect."

He worked the phones for a while and finally called me back.

"Good news. We can change it to the second weekend in May, but that's it. He needed 100-percent commitment, so I booked it," my friend said. "No backing out now. Plus, the longer I stay on the phone the less chance you'll commit to this, so I'm hanging up right now, before you spend that $150 on something like diapers for Madison."

After getting off the phone and writing the trip on the calendar -- with ink, I was that confident -- it hit me. That was Mother's Day weekend, and being married with a child, there are three mothers in my family now.

After sweet-talking my wife and explaining to her the virtues of an early-season rainbow trout float trip, she gave me "the look" that every husband is well aware of.

"I don't mind, if that's what you want to do," she said while her eyes bored holes in my head so I would know she meant the exact opposite thing than she just got done telling me. "We'll go out to your mom's, and when you get home, you can meet us out there. If you get home in time. If you love us."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but an endorsement nonetheless, and that's all I needed. I've got a guilty conscience, but we're talking about a float trip here.

The next morning I was recounting the conversation I had with my wife to our sports editor, Tim Brodt. I knew he would see things my way, and give me the reassurance that going fishing on Mother's Day isn't all that bad of an idea.

As every mother I work with jumped my case, Tim had my back on the float trip.

He told me that once, when he and his wife, Anna, were only married a few years, he bolted from Nebraska to Kansas City, Mo., for a Rush concert on his wife's birthday. And they're still married today, more than a decade later, which gives me hope.

"But you'll get reminded about it forever," Tim told me. "Anna brings it up all the time."

That's OK, in my book. If I get reminded about catching rainbows on a weekend float trip for the rest of my life, well, that's about as close to perfect as a guy can get.

Anybody have plans for Father's Day? The kings will definitely be running around that time.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor and soon-to-be single guy after Mother's Day. He can only trade breathable waders for his wife's forgiveness.