Remember when: Ben Miller

An era ended in 1988 when Ben Miller retired from the Odessa Police Department. For 25 years, he had been the most visible cop of them all - the man who patrolled downtown on foot. He was the last to fulfill that role in an area that was in transition from retail to institutional.

"They didn't need me anymore," he noted.

But Miller wasn't about to forsake the place that had his footprints all over it.

Two decades later, he's still a downtown fixture. He and his wife of 60 years, Joy, run Ben's Pawn Shop on the northwest corner of Fifth Street and Grant Avenue.

Miller remembers fondly when Grant and Lee and Texas avenues were a beehive of activity. "He's got a good memory," his wife said.

He ticks off the name of businesses long since gone - the Model Shop, the Frisco Cafï¿©, the Drillers Club, the Rio Theater and Dunlaps, which once occupied the building where he and his wife run their business and live in a second-story apartment. There were six theaters down here at one time, he said. And people didnt have to walk much farther to shop than they do when they go to the mall.

But downtown has changed, Miller said, really changed. He said the lone retail business left from his beat days is his across-the-street neighbor, Jims Big and Tall Men Shop.

The Millers came to Odessa from East Texas, via Kermit where he roughnecked for $1.40 an hour. When he hired at the OPD on April 8, 1952, he was pulling down $303 a month.

And Ben proudly holds the watermark for longevity with the police department 36 years and 22 days. I set a record thatll never be broken, he said, nothing that police work is so demanding that even long-termers tend to retire after 25 years.

But he said the best part of it all was when he got the downtown beat, walking mostly along Grant and the alleys between the main street and Lee and Texas avenues from First Street north to Seventh. Man, I had it made, Miller said. And he said it was a good deal for the department as well because it gave merchants and customers a chance to really know the officer who was dealing with their problems and form a personal connection with law enforcement.

But when the time came to retire, the pawn shop plan was fully in motion. Miller had been collecting merchandise for his new venture for some time. Joy Miller shook her head and said, We had a five-car garage at their Bernice Avenue home, and I could just barely get my car in it. A few years after the pawn shop opened, she retired from being a beauty operator to help run the operation.

They raised son David Miller, who lives here, and daughter Virginia Miller, who has taught school in Big Spring for more than three decades. And they still joke around about their time together (Sixty years, and we havent killed each other yet, Ben says).

And in a way, Ben Miller is still patrolling his old beat. He and his wife can be seen many mornings on their senior citizen motorized scooters going to the city gym a few blocks away or just exploring.

Weve been on every parking lot and in every alley between Bernice and Dixie and Pearl on the south to 10th, he said. During the business day, he can be seen pacing the sidewalk in front of the store when business is slow.

And Miller leaves no doubt that he and downtown Odessa are inseparable.

Ill be here for the rest of my days, he said.