A Pretty Gritty City

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
-A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes-

Many, many, years ago, when I was a freshman in college, we studied the works of the great American poet, Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967). "A Dream Deferred", his poem above, was the basis for the title of the famous Lorraine Hansberry play.

I remember sitting in English 101 (I think) and reading this poem as a bright-eyed, aspiring lawyer, trying my darndest to understand Hughes' words. What does it mean to defer a dream? Somehow, at eighteen, dreams were what drove you forward, through high school, into college, and soon on to a brilliant career as either a lawyer, doctor, chief executive - or all three! Somehow, I just could not fathom what it was to have a vision of life that seemed constantly out of reach.

The answer came clearly to me a few years later when I graduated from college and moved back to Bridgeport. Just four years before, this was a city I struggled to escape. Upon my return, it was a post-industrial hinterland that, strangely enough, had a warm embrace. Much of the warmth could easily have been the result of the smoke from the local Resco plant, but I think it had more to do with the overall sense of melancholy in the city. Inspite of the pervading weariness, no one seemed depressed - depression was for the suburbs.

Everyone was too busy pursuing their dreams: Dreams to pay the rent on time; dreams to keep up with the taxes (or the Joneses); dreams to either buy their own home here or to finally move out of this city. Dreams of finding a job or of getting an education. Dreams of having a "good" school to enroll their child in or dreams of actually electing an honest candidate to municipal office.

So, what does happen to a dream deferred? . . . It moves to Bridgeport.