Having a birthday on Flag Day means flags are always flying on your special day. Every year I like to drive up Franklin Street in Chapel Hill to see the flags hung “in my honor.” When my daughters were small, I didn’t realize that they took that idea to heart and ended up feeling seriously betrayed when they got old enough to realize the flag display wasn’t actually for me.

Even with that history, Katy and Becca are still willing to indulge me. This year on June 14th, the three of us drove up to Roxboro to make sure my birthday was being properly honored in Person County. Like so many small towns in North Carolina, Roxboro has a thriving commercial strip on the outskirts of a town and a downtown that, in spite of valiant revitalization efforts, is little competition for the big chains on the highway.

I’ve lived most of my life in Orange County, just below Person. Orange County has a stark cultural divide, with the more cosmopolitan and populous towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro in the southeastern corner while the rest of the county is more rural and traditional. Being from Chapel Hill, I’ve grown up seeing that difference from the vantage point of my little corner. Much of what I call “Northern Orange” is actually central – it’s only northern in relation to where I live.

Driving into Roxboro from Durham, I was struck by how much of a community parts of Person and Orange County create. For many people in Orange County, it’s only a few minutes to the movie theater or grocery store in Roxboro. They surely don’t think of themselves as living north of Chapel Hill; they probably spend little time thinking of Chapel Hill at all. Their community is formed across county lines.

Human beings are a self-centered bunch. Whether it’s imagining the flags are flying in your honor on your Flag Day birthday or picturing fellow county residents in relation to where you live, it’s hard to step away from ourselves and shift our perspective to how the world might look to others. Our trip to Roxboro was a good chance for me to see my world through another lens and, with the flags flying in  downtown Roxboro, a fine opportunity for me to wave my flag!

June 14, 2017, County #33 – Person