Pearl Jam

Finally.


I passed up free tickets to see Pearl Jam in December of 1991 in Norman. I think I had a lot of homework that night or something. Maybe a math test the next day. What a dumb kid I was.

Sean Pruitt, Heather McKinney and I used to listen to the Ten album -- via a Discman plugged into the cassette deck -- as he gave us lifts home after school in his hand-me-down burgandy minivan. We'd stop at Sonic on the way home for slushes, giving us more time to listen to the album and to dissect the hell that is high school. Ken Griffey Jr. was becoming a star in Seattle for my favorite baseball team, grunge was cool and I was just starting to think there might be life beyond Oklahoma.

In my warped little head, the Northwest was a great escape. Every teenager has one. This became mine. It was almost a mythical place that seemed unreachable, beyond my grasp, never to be seen or experienced but always there, on the horizon.

Now, nearly 15 years later, my flannel shirts are gone (OK, I might still have one or two in the back of the closet) but here I am living in the Northwest. I know it is, in many ways, the mythical place I made it out to be. After six years up here, there are still moments when I have to pinch myself. I've been to Seattle enough to know Portland suits me much better. And on Thursday night, if things hold together, it looks like I'll be seeing Eddie Vedder and his mates take the stage a few blocks from my office.

Seeing them in 1991, in Norman, at 14 would've been great. But seeing them in 2006, in Portland, at 29 will mean a lot more.