Here We Are Now by Charles R Cross Page A

into the past, his work becomes the larger part of his current history. Kurt’s musical legacy, easier to embrace for politicians than his personal demons, also brings much needed tourist dollars to the struggling city.
    In 2004, three Aberdeen High School students wrote a story in the daily newspaper asking why their city had never done anything to officially honor Kurt Cobain. That same year, one of the newspaper’s writers and a city council member formed the nonprofit Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee. Their first goal was to place a sign at the city limits saying that Aberdeen was the birthplace of Kurt, but that was deemed too controversial. Eventually the committee raised private money to construct a small addition to the existing “Welcome to Aberdeen” sign that would read: “Come As You Are.” The organizers gambled that by mentioning Kurt’s iconic song, and not his name, they might have a greater chance of getting official approval. “We were looking to honor a guy who had said some rather mean things about his hometown and the people who lived there,” Jeff Burlingame, an Aberdeen author and co-organizer of the effort, told me. “Many were not fond of that, nor were they fond of his lifestyle or his means of death.” But the city council approved the effort, and it was installed at the city limits. It has since become an iconic part of Aberdeen’s identity.
    Over the years there have been other attempts to construct a more overt memorial in Aberdeen, or to possibly name a street or a park after Kurt. A proposal to rename the Young Street Bridge the Kurt Cobain Bridge was voted down ten to one by the city council. “Is this the legacy we want to leave to our children?” local pastor Don Eden said at the time.
    In 2008, a senior citizen who lived next to the Young Street Bridge became frustrated at attitudes like Eden’s and took matters into his own hands. Tori Kovach cleared out a half acre of blackberry bushes from city property near the path to the underside of the bridge and began the process of creating a “park” there with his bare hands. Other locals started to help, and businesses donated materials. This do-it-yourself attitude, which Kurt had as well, is one of the things I admire about the citizens of Aberdeen. A sign was constructed in etched metal that featured the lyrics of “Something in the Way” on it. Kovach told The Daily World he was more of a fan of Elvis Presley than Kurt Cobain, but Aberdeen was overdue to recognize Kurt. “Aspects of his life resonate with me because I was from a broken home,” Kovach said. The citizen-created park stirred some to complain, but eventually the city voted to take it over. The spot is now officially the Kurt Cobain Riverfront Park.
    In 2013 a proposal was put forth to the Aberdeen city council to demolish the “Come As You Are” sign. After some consideration, the council voted unanimously to keep it as is. And when the Kurt Cobain Memorial Committee has organized benefit concerts, they’ve been well attended and supported by donations from some of the nearby governments, including even Hoquiam’s. “Today, anyone from Aberdeen who speaks of Kurt in a negative light on social media will find himself shouted down tenfold,” Jeff Burlingame says. “Time, as it does with most things, has softened the spite. The line graph of Kurt’s popularity in Aberdeen, if there were such a thing, would still be heading north.” John Hughes agrees: “With every passing year, Aberdeen has come to grips with his genius.”
    A sign at Aberdeen’s Kurt Cobain Riverfront Park also notes that it is one of the many spots Kurt’s ashes were scattered after his cremation. It reads, in part: KURT IMMORTALIZED THIS RIVER. IN TURN, THE RIVER NOW IMMORTALIZES HIM.
    Seattle’s relationship with Kurt was, and remains, markedly different from Aberdeen’s.