Nirvana

He doesn't recall whether or not it's been mentioned that since 1986, when he first moved to upstate New York, he worked as a whitewater river guide on weekends, taking rafts of passengers down a 17-mile wilderness stretch of the Hudson River up in the Adirondack Mountains.  No matter how bad things got, he always had a bit of adventure waiting for him on the weekend.  His passengers might have had more of an adventure than they had paid for if they only knew that their guide truly didn't care if he lived or if he died.

Also, by 1991 he had shaved off his trademark beard. A new look for a new decade.

1991, of course, was the year of Nirvana, putting Seattle and the Pacific Northwest in the spotlight.  He liked Nirvana, a lot, and it was something new, even if its punk roots and its rock melodies sounded familiar to him.  The music of Kurt Cobain and the other grunge bands of the time (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, etc.) fit nicely into his 1991 playlist and were in heavy rotation on his new CD player.  And there was nothing sweeter than driving up north for a weekend of whitewater adventure with Smells Like Teen Spirit blasting out of the Jeep's speakers.