The Infamous Exit 69

Big Beaver Road, Troy Michigan

I know that there are other snaps of this sign on the Internet, but this sign is a huge part of my life growing up in the Detroit area and spending my late teens and early twenties in the northern suburbs. The Detroit area has a band or roads around it, about a mile apart from each other, that we call the ‘Mile Roads’. You may remember Eminem’s movie “Eight Mile”, which is named after one such road that is the northern border of Detroit in most places.

Well, eight miles north of that is Sixteen Mile Rd, which has alternate names in various suburbs. The City of Troy calls it Big beaver Rd, so that is what it is called as I-75 passes through. “Beaver” has an off-color slang meaning, thanks in part to Hustler magazine, but truck drivers on the CB radio use the term as simply a slang for women in general. “Any beaver out there tonight?” It’s mostly innocuous. I know because I talked on the CB actively fior years.

But it loses it’s innocousness when they see this sign with exit number 69 on it. You can listen to channel 19 all day and hear trucker after trucker see it and make witty comments as if they were the first to notice, ever.