From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah

     Eighty three degrees and without a raindrop in the sky! Washington's warm weather was so inviting that I couldn't resist taking my children on a trip to the beach.

     After crowding into my Jimmy, the kids and I took Interstate 5 south, the 101 west and then Route 8 toward the beach cities. As we entered the small town on the Olympic Peninsula where grunge rock's icon Kurt Cobain grew up, we passed a sign which stated, "Welcome to Aberdeen -- Come as You Are." We were enjoying lunch at a Subway sandwich shop near WalMart when I remembered reading that Nirvana's fans had erected a statue to honor Kurt on the seventeeth anniversary of his death.

     I had to see the statue and pay my respects to Kurt. More importantly, my teenage daughter, Kate, had to!

     We asked some locals for directions. They told us that Kurt's statue was located near a bridge by the cemetery. We drove across what appeared to be an ordinary overpass before we realized that it was the Young Street Bridge. Turning around, we crossed the winding river and entered a quiet neighborhood of older houses with colorful wooden siding. I parked the truck.

      At the entrance of the KC Waterfront Park stood a lifesize, concrete statue shaped to resemble a guitar that Nirvana's frontman once commissioned from Fender.

     Kurt Cobain lived two blocks away from the Young Street Bridge when he was a boy. The bridge became one of his favorite places to hang out. He claimed that he lived under the overpass for several days when he was 15. This experience inspired him to write his popular song, "Something in the Way."

     Someone painted the words "In Memoriam: From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah" on the bridge's concrete support beam. Brightly-colored graffiti was spray-painted under the bridge. My kids were delighted by the rumble they heard when a motor vehicle drove across the overpass.

      People come from all parts of the world to pay tribute to Kurt Cobain. The small park near the Young Street Bridge is the only memorial for Kurt because his body was cremated. One third of his ashes were sprinkled into the Wishkah. A sign erected on the grassy knoll stated that Kurt's spirit flows with the river under the bridge twice daily.