Memphis' Diner

It's the same thing as putting money in the bank. This way you might taker out more than you put inabut Mellon ain't gonna let you do that. The numbers give you an opportunity. If it wasn't for the numbers all these niggers would be poor (Wilson, 1992, p. 3).

The year is 1969, and the worst event that could happen to the characters at Memphis' Diner is the fact that this old diner is going to have to have to come down, in order for big new sky scrapers and modernization of Pittsburgh can go into effect. This is no longer a city of steel mills. They've long disappeared, along with coal miners and river traffic. The blacks who came up from the South to work for the war effort back in the 1940's are struggling to survive somehow. Playing the numbers may be the only way out for some of them.

This was a time of what was called "urban renewal". What it meant was the displacement of poor blacks and black neighborhoods in order to build huge sky scrapers and modern apartment complexes that the old-0time residents could not afford. Memphis' Diner is about to be one of the victims of the "modernization" of the inner city in Pittsburgh. The old neighborhood is going, going, gone.

Ain't nothing gonna be left around here. Supermarket's gone. Two drugstores. The five a

. . .
a Cadillac and a good woman" (p. 93). But, to get that, he (and any man, black or white) needs a job. "Sterling embodies Wilson's idea of 'the truth of American society'. Being turned away from employment because of race is part of the black man's reality" (Anon, 2001, p. 1). When one reads Wilson's plays and sees some of the male characters seemingly floundering, either in, or just out of jail, deserting women, or being deserted by them it is hard to comprehend Shannon's (1996) description of Wilson as perpetuating a way of life he feels provides healthy images for a floundering generation of Americans (Shannon, 1996, p. 12). One needs to ask whether Sterling represents a "healthy" image? Or, whether the other major protagonist, Hambone, does? There must be some complex way in which Hambone represents a part of Wilson's concept of the American Dream? He seems to have completely lost his senses, still complaining about an event that happened ten years earlier, when Lutz, the butcher who had promised him a ham for painting his fences, decided to give him a chicken instead. Every morning still, Hambone goes by the butcher shop demanding his ham. But, Hambone is regarded as a sort of hero by others in the diner. Holloway say
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Memphis' Diner, Wilson Memphis, Affirmative Action, Greenwich Village, Dream Dream, Trains Running, Running Wilson, American Dream, , Holloway That's, american dream, ain't gonna, white man's, trains running, wilson 1992, ain't gonna left, hopes price, white society, gone ain't, gonna left, gone ain't gonna, kennedy assassinated,
Approximate Word count = 1848
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)