TONY DODERO
Last Friday, while on vacation, I took my son Nathan to my favorite
barber shop to get his first ever haircut.
Nate, as we call him, doesn't have much hair yet, as he's only 19
months old. What hair he did have was kind of scraggly, and even
worse, the tufts on the back of his neck came down in one of those
mullet-style looks.
And my wife and I were not going to have any of that.
So off we went to Miller Barber Family Barber Shop, owned and
operated by Mark Miller, a Costa Mesa native, born and raised.
I've been going to Mark Miller's shop on Broadway, just a stone's
throw from Triangle Square, for about two years now, before Nate was
even born, and Mark is as good as they get at cutting hair.
After he cleaned up Nate, gave him a cool first haircut
certificate and made him look respectable, it was my turn in the
chair.
What I got, though, was more than just a haircut. I got a lesson
on the disappointment that at least one Costa Mesa resident feels
about his town and the direction it's heading and, more importantly,
what he thinks the problems and solutions are.
First, a little background.
As I said, Mark was born and raised here. He attended Pomona
Elementary, Rea Middle School and Estancia High. His dad, Bob Miller,
was a principal at several local schools, mainly Adams and Newport
elementary.
His baseball coaches were the legendary Luke Davis and Shorty
Scheafer, whose son Mike was on the City Council not that long ago.
Mark and his wife Diane are now raising their kids, Dylan, 12, and
Josie, 7, here in his hometown.
And he has one big question.
"What happened to Costa Mesa?"
In his mind, it's pretty clear. City leaders abandoned the youth.
They nudged out the small mom and pops in favor of big corporations,
and they seem way too focused on putting in restaurants and bars and
less concerned about keeping the city's small town charm alive.
"Back when I was a kid, the Fish Fry was always something to look
forward to," he said. "We had parades and the Boys Club passed out
food to all the people. There is none of that anymore. And it's
appalling."
Specifically, he wants to see the Westside of Costa Mesa return to
what it was like some 20 or 30 years ago.
"They need to bring back the old Boys and Girls Club that we used
to have," he said, noting that he began attending the Boys and Girls
Club in 1965. "We had a swimming pool and shop classes. It was great.
We used to have our own youth baseball league."
The league once called Costa Mesa Park its home, but the land is
