When is summer break starting?

Resslin' Around, by Casey Ressler

Last Wednesday was the most anticipated day of the year for a lot of people -- and the most dreaded day of the year to a good many others.

It was the last day of school -- a time for kids to simply quit caring about anything for a few months, and the official start for parents to come up with new ideas to pass the time of the little tyrants. A morning spent at Cottonwood Creek Elementary School on the last day only reaffirmed my belief that we all should take off until around Labor Day. If it's good for the kids, it must be good for the bigger kids as well.

So, through Labor Day, when you open up to the Valley Life section, you will see my little mug shot, with a blank page and the headline "This page left intentionally blank. It is summer vacation. We will resume our regularly scheduled life in September."

You will be able to drive as fast as you want because all the cops will be vacationing as well, and those long days at the office will consist of nothing but golf outings that last all day. Business trips will be to the Deshka or Little Su rivers. Camping and fishing trips can only be scheduled Monday through Sunday. Of course, there will be no summer vacations for the fly shop or any other sporting goods store.

It sounds funny to think of such a life, but I remember a time that seems all too long ago, when I first faced the dilemma of a summer not actually being a vacation. I was fresh out of college six years ago, and I had just started at the Frontiersman. I still missed my college days, as any 21-year-old will. I was talking to a friend of mine from Michigan, where I went to college, and he asked me what we were going to do for spring break. He was still in college, enjoying his senior year while the rest of us began our careers.

"Uh, spring break?" I asked him. "When would that be? I have this funny little thing I like to call my job, and I don't think I saw spring break covered in the employee handbook they gave me."

"Dude, that's not right. We're going to Mexico, dude. You can make it, right?" was his response.

Yeah, I could make it, if he had got hold of me 10 years earlier.

When you are a kid, responsibility is the last thing on your mind. Your only responsibility is fun and relaxation, and maybe we all can learn from that equation, even if we do have to punch the clock through September.

Watching those kids at Cottonwood Creek last Wednesday, I realized that we all could stand to have a relaxed outlook. Forget about the daily grind and enjoy the summer while it lasts.

After all, if we actually did get summer vacation, myself and countless others would have to hear our wives telling us, "That's it. I'm pulling over right now. We'll go home if we have to," every time I tuned a ball game into the radio on the road.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor and wanna-be vacationer.