When I read this story in the Globe, it evoked the image of medieval lords who had huge egos and got off on enforcing their will on the folks who were within their fiefdoms. The story is about street name disputes in towns around the commonwealth. Many towns have gone through bitter disputes as a result of necessary renaming of roads, and the naming of new roads as developments pop up everywhere.
But one story stood out, that of Peter Porcaro Drive. This fellow behind the name of this road really sounds like a little Caesar.
Porcaro says he wasn’t trying to antagonize his new neighbors; his complaint was with town officials, whom he sued for preventing him from developing his property. […] The town’s resistance to his naming of Peter Porcaro Drive, he said, only fed his desire to name the common driveway.
“The more they tried to deny me the right to do it, the more I wanted to do it, because I had researched this whole street-naming business,” he said. […]
Beede said he cared less about the new address than Porcaro’s heavy-handedness. The day Porcaro learned that he had won on the driveway name, the neighbors say, a bouquet of helium balloons reading “Congratulations!” was tied to the street sign.
It could be that he was well within his rights. I don’t know the details. But, either way, fighting to shove your name down your neighbors’ throats makes you, in my book, eligible for a special “asshat” award. Is “asshattery” a word? It ought to be.
Posted by James at April 25, 2004 5:11 AM