Hanging Out in Carrboro

Carrboro residents have intriguing hair.  In a single brief pass down Weaver Street, I saw a grandmotherly woman with blue, pink, and purple streaks in her grey hair, a woman wearing a convincing electric pink wig, and countless bountiful dreadlocks glistening with sweat in the mid-afternoon heat.  Most colors of the rainbow were present, combs were optional.  

            The attire of the Carrboro crowd was in a similar vein, varied in cultural origins, degrees of shabbiness, and age appropriateness.  The median age appeared to be higher than I expected.  A remarkable number of older people sat around shopping and eating, a few accompanied by people of other generations but many alone.  They all seemed healthy though, despite the wrinkles and greyed hair that leads people to suspect walkers and after-dinner pills.  This makes sense though because Weaver Street Market, the seeming thoroughfare of town, sells organic groceries, including biodynamic grapes.  Basically nothing in Carrboro mirrors the flavor of anyone’s local Walmart.

            Carrboro just seems to have its own set of priorities.  The sides of businesses include huge murals—which I suspect might be protested in other towns—including one depicting all the Japanese Zodiac signs.  The murals add character and dimension to the buildings, and emphasize a priority for art.  The various shops follow suit, with many focused on artisans or selling unique wares.  The shops appear mostly empty though, and their keepers eye you eagerly if you linger too long in the doorway (and if you’re holding a notebook and pen). 

            All of the people seem to know each other—many greetings as people walk down the street—and the atmosphere is very friendly.  In Elmo’s Diner—a very busy place on a Sunday afternoon—the bus boys sing and laugh as they clear tables.  The waiters and waitresses good-naturedly implore diners eating on the patio to place heavy objects on their receipts after diners helped them hunt down a few blown away by the wind.  A hostess remarks to her co-worker after an older woman walks away that “They come here every weekend.  They always order the same thing.”  There’s a sense that many places in Carrboro have “regulars,” and the faces, while eclectic, are familiar.  There’s hominess even about the businesses. The patio at Elmo’s is adorned with the classic fly remedy of Southern porches—bags of water tied to the awning.  It’s hard to imagine such a device utilized in chain restaurants. 

            The traffic patterns also seem non-conformist, with roads intersecting at unusual places and stop lights difficult to determine what areas they govern.  The sometimes-confused cars mingle with many cyclists and pedestrians and joggers, creating a bit of chaotic harmony that tells you these people navigate these areas consistently.  It is only to the occasional outsider that the roads seem confusing.            

            Overall, Carrboro feels united in its uniqueness: all the shops and restaurants and people feel distinct but together produce the same feeling of rearranged priorities, favoring the less than mainstream and embracing alternative lifestyles, but doing it together.