The dust is boiling out from under my truck as I head down Betty Dunn Road. I can see the red cloud chasing me in my side mirrors.

Two things.

One. There aren’t many dirt roads in this part of Georgia anymore. A lot of them have been neatly covered in asphalt. Some of the ones from my childhood are covered in asphalt and provide entrance to large urban housing units where the drivers of clean cars abhor road dust of any kind.

When I was a kid, I loved the dirt roads best. Not many cars traveled them except those that “belonged” on them. I learned this term from my aunts, uncles, and cousins that lived on them. I grew up on the tar and gravel road around the corner.

I’ve stood in their presence when a truck went by, the dust cloud rising up like the smoke of a distant fire. They’d say something like, “Humph! Wonder who that is? That truck don’t belong here.”

What they meant was that they didn’t recognize the truck as one that belonged to anyone who lived on their road, or on any road nearby. And not just anybody would cut through on the dirt road.

Which is why I liked them. I could ride my bike on them without really having to watch for cars. And since the tire tracks were in the middle of the road, if one did come by, I didn’t have to get off in the ditch to be out of the way. I’d swallow dust for a few minutes, but I was used to it.

And, I guess, this is the second thing.

Dirt roads were great for bike riding. Some younger folks may not believe it, but they were. My own kids always wanted to go to where there was pavement to ride their bikes. Our gravel driveway was just too bumpy. And I get that. A gravel road ain’t good for riding. Too much loose rock can throw you and you end up with a bloody nose.

The roads near my house had little if any gravel on them. They were definitely red DIRT roads. There was enough clay in there to pack hard under the constant pressure from the tires that rolled over them. And it would pack so hard that the tracks would get slick and smooth, except for the occasional top three inches of an exposed rock the size of a hood on a ’49 Chevy truck. You hit one of those wrong, and you’d wind up face down with dirt in your mouth.

So, the tracks would be slick, which made for smooth riding. In the heat of summer, when things were dry like they are now, in the distance where your eyes and the road meet the horizon, you could see the heat waves rising off the road just like on a paved road. I could ride fast and coast down the big hills on Simpson Mill Road without hardly ever feeling a bump.

There were only two things that messed up the ride. The county motor grader was one of them. Every now and then, the road crew would come along to smooth out the ruts and clean out the ditches. The grading got rid of the tracks and left nothing but soft dirt on top. That was hard to ride in.

The other thing was rain. If the road was packed hard, the rain made it slick; slick enough to fishtail coming down a hill if you hit the brakes wrong. I’m thinking about vehicles here, not bicycles. And, good Lord, if the county had been by right before the rain, you could forget making it up the hill without having mud slung from one end to the other.

I can remember going into town and seeing rows of cars parked along the storefronts. It was easy to spot who lived on a dirt road and who didn’t. The clean cars versus the dirty ones.

If it was dry, the back of the car was thick with dust, and the tires were never black. If it was wet, thick globs of red mud stuck to the side of the car. Some of it fell to the pavement below and sat there like a mushy lump.

You don’t see cars in town like this anymore. Nobody likes a dirt road.

As I got a little older, the dirt roads were where I learned to drive well before I was of any legal age. Rocky Creek Road. Dad let me drive over to Greer’s Dairy. I was thirteen. I was in need of some serious money.

I wanted more than a bicycle. Dad helped me buy five calves from the dairy. I raised them on a bottle, sold them, and I got a Honda 90 trail bike.

I rode that thing everywhere. The dirt roads behind the Weems’ place took me down to the old train trestles over the creek toward Luella. From there, I could make it almost all the way to Hampton and back home without getting on the pavement until I was about a half mile from the house.

The dirt roads gave me freedom, and they criss-crossed all over. The Locust Grove Road that I lived on was tar and gravel. I’ve said that already. Then, the other major roads in the area, McDonough Road, which is Highway 20, GA 81, and GA 3, the main drag through Hampton; all these were real asphalt paved roads.

But, almost without exception, nearly every spur that connected between all those roads was dirt roads. A kid on a dirt bike could hop and skip from dirt to dirt pretty easily without having to travel very far on the highway, where I ran the risk of catching the disapproving eye of local law enforcement.

Betty Dunn Road reminds me of this. There’s a lot of gravel here. The road crew has been by recently. It hasn’t rained in a good while. The surface is powder dry. And all of this adds up to the dust that is whipping up in the wind behind me.

I’m on my way to eat lunch with “the guys.” Once in a while the fellas that normally gather around up at The Pig for lunch will get together out at Brent’s cabin. Somebody will cook burgers, or fish. Maybe fresh corn. Tables in the yard under the trees. A piece of pie. A lot of good conversation going on between 16 or 17 old-timers.

It’s good for my retirement spirit. I met the new owner of the hardware store. I saw the guy who drilled my well over 25 years ago. Several guys I used to work with at Callaway Gardens. It’s just good to be here.

I sat with Brent for a few minutes. He got to talking about trying to find a few acres outside of town where he and his wife might build their “last” home. “The one we’ll die in,” he said.

“Why not right here?” I asked. “It’s a pretty spot.”

“Not on this dusty dirt road,” he said.

It is dusty. I’ll grant you that.