Roy Hylton adjusts one of his many flags on the truck. - Norman Grindley

Roy Hylton said he was being patriotic when he purchased 200 flags and put them on his vehicle to celebrate the island's Independence.

However, given our island's success at the Olympics in Beijing, China, he has decided to keep the flags on his truck until early September as part of his celebrations.

Hilton, a Justice of the Peace, spent $10,000 on the flags and $2,000 for the board that he used to mount the flags. Only several dozen flags were mounted on the truck at a time.

Olympic news

He also has a public announcement system in the 15-year-old Toyota pickup. "I have been collecting all the major news on our Olympians, I capture it on CD and play it to excite the crowd," he said.

He doesn't plan to share his joy for the team only with the Corporate Area, as he intends to travel around the island in his van, especially to the communities where our athletes are from. "I will be going into Usain's Trelawny district, over and over, and will be visiting the other Olympians' areas as well.

Flag theft

But while he tries to share in Jamaica's success in his own way, Hilton's attempts have been met with obstacles, mainly flag theft. At the time the news team interviewed him, quite a number of the flags, which he intended to keep up until the second week of September, had been stolen. He said he had replacements, but this was the second time in the last three weeks since he put them up, that he has had to replace them.

But he has devised a solution for keeping the thieves away. He used his public announcement system to warn people about taking away the flags.

In the meantime, Hilton said he is happy about Jamaica's success at the Games and is looking forward to celebrating with the athletes when they return to the island.