Trenton needs a mercy flush
Tony Persichilli, God rest his sweet Italian soul, spent an entire lifetime loving on the City of Trenton, especially Chambersburg and his Tornadoes football team.
Persichilli, a proud born-andraised journalist for both city newspapers, owned an honorable trait of fitting in, no matter how closed the circle seemed.
Perch’s experiences materialized from street-level perspectives while riding his bicycle, walking to Italian Peoples Bakery and shooting the poop with customers or smoking a cigar with his lifetime friends, a group that resembled the United Nations.
During these days when people give you up under minimal interrogation accentuated by the white hot splash of light provided by an iPhone, Perch never burned anyone.
One comment he made involved a bathroom pitstop that turned lengthy.
“I had to make a mercy flush,” Persichilli confessed.
Hopefully this column finds you seated and ready for a disappointing story about a police incident on South Warren St.
The man involved has been an acquaintance/ friend for three decades, a person who earned my respect for his candor, work ethic and knowledge.
He is 68 years old, lives freely despite Parkinson’s disease and still believes Trenton can make a comeback. His confession. “I was parked in front of a fire hydrant right there,” he said, pointing.
“I don’t know how it happened, I just forgot
I guess but my registration had expired by two weeks. I had my papers, insurance card and some other items on the front seat because I had planned to head to DMV after I finished my business on South Warren.”
Yeah, I know. Fire hydrant and expired registration. What did he expect to happen?
Let’s not forget the guy is standing near his car while discussing repairs necessary for a downtown business owner’s building.
The police officer wrote several tickets, including one for parking illegally on a state highway. Plus, the officer had the guy’s car towed and impounded.
(Do the mercy flush now). A personal favorite word involves the noun “discretion.”
1. The quality of behaving or speaking in such a way as to avoid causing offense or revealing private information.
2. The freedom to decide what should be done in a particular situation.
People with power, police, politicians, clergy, even columnists can influence conversations, impact lives and effect change.
Newspapers? Heck, despite the downward facing dogged days of print journalism, tabloids and broadsheets can make a person smell like canine poop even if they have dashed their bodies with Fifth Ave. cologne.
Many articles never became print as a phone call altered a landlord’s actions; challenged a business to resolve a customer’s problem or gained government action without public broadcast.
Discretion means power; suggests the person assigned to such an influential enterprise embodies wisdom and justice.
A ticket? Maybe. An extended traffic stop should never occur unless police have Al Capone, John Dillinger or Bonnie Elizabeth Parker dead to rights.
Leaving a 68-year-old man with Parkinson’s downtown to fend for himself and adding that he makes a court appearance sounds harsh.
What causes amazement involves eyewitness accounts about open-air, broad daylight sales of drugs and sex.
Lamberton St., Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, Walnut Ave. remain hot spots that one would think need significant attention.
Not enough gets done about these people who cause community erosion but this police officer moved his weight around against a septuagenarian. Impressive. Then again, police who take orders from their superiors, rarely receive orders that places them in those street situations that Persichilli knew offered impeccable insights.
“Maybe the guy had a bad day,” the man offered.
Perhaps. This still stinks.
Mercy flush. (Tomorrow: read about how police handled perfectly an incident at the Guatemalan Parade & Festival on Sunday).