miller road

My hometown is Dixon, California. I wasn't born there, but I grew up there. From the mid 60's through the early 80's I called Dixon home. It was just a small farm town then, and most people worked and lived in town. Back then, commuting meant driving from one side of town to another. We didn't have a McDonalds or a Pizza Hut or Wal Mart then, but we did have an A&W (on the edge of town) and a small drive in called the 'Frosty' in the middle of town. We had one movie theater with shows on Friday and Saturday nights.

When you grow up in a small town, you learn to have fun where you can find it and to make the most of it. Once we got to high school and the State of California foolishly issued us driver's licenses, a whole new world opened up. Now we could drive to the nearby towns and enjoy the things they had to offer: first run movies, fast food, drag racing, record stores (real records, not CDs or online digital music stores thank you) and other amenities that we did not have growing up in Dixon. One particular venue of entertainment was Miller Road. If you grew up in Dixon, you are probably smiling now. That's because 1.) you drank a lot of beer on Miller Road or 2.) you got lucky on Miller Road or 3.) you drank a lot of beer and got lucky on Miller Road.

Miller Road was a few miles out of town, a smaller road off of the larger Robben Road. There were no street lights, yard lights, or any lighting out there except for the vast sky that covers the Sacramento Valley. At night there were thousands of stars to be seen even through the haze in the air. It was quiet, except for the sound of irrigation pumps, crickets, and the occasional car or truck speeding down another road. This is in the heart of farmland, so there was not much traffic or many people out there. It was, and I suppose still is, a popular place to drink and raise a little hell because it was away from town. There was always a chance that the county sheriff could drop by, but if everyone turned off their headlights chances were excellent that a group of Dixon youth could spend the whole night out there undetected. In the summer the smell of alfalfa was in the air, kind of a sweet smell that was uniquely Dixon. I too drank my share of beer on this road, sitting on the hoods of cars and trucks contemplating life under the stars.

You could tell when it was someone's first trip to this place; they would become awestruck by the big sky and universe laid out in front of them, with a childlike look of wonder on their faces. Like standing on the beach and looking out at the ocean, looking up at the night sky reminds us of the larger world outside of the little town we called home. Or maybe it was the beer. In either event, it was fun in our home town. No parents or law enforcement to get in the way. Just young people drinking, laughing, flirting, and wondering what lay ahead of them. Wondering about life. Before HD TV, before the Internet, before you could look up the constellation on your iPhone, we had a little place that didn't belong to us, but was owned by everyone. Every town had a place like this. Ours was called Miller Road. The next time I go back there, I just might buy some beer, drive to Miller Road and sit on the hood of the car and look up at the sky. Hopefully the police won't be patrolling that night.

P.S. To the football players that scattered when a spotlight was shined on them in the fall of 1978, that was not the sheriff. That was me and Gene. psych.