More times than I truly care to admit, in the past, my ever returning hunger has forced me to dine at the Salvation Army’s Red Shield Diner and Kitchen, 1001 N. Penn Ave., especially during those trying moments when the money and worse, the food, has spectacularly run out and you still have a small eternity until a few dollars might be coming your way again.
As I turned yet another year older last weekend, I thought deeply about those days dining alone in the Salvation Army’s mess hall; I decided that I would spend my last day as a 40-year-old returning to one of my most anonymous of haunts from a few years ago, the Red Shield Diner, for a lonely birthday dinner, if only to remember where I came from and, sadly, where I may return to someday.
Even though the sun was setting, there was still plenty of light out as I walked down Penn Ave., past the neighborhood diners and abandoned churches, to the still new-looking mansion of the hill that is the Salvation Army’s Central Command. As a few of the destitute patrons sat outside on the grass and rubbed their blistered feet, I shuffled in with the early eaters, hoping to get a good seat and a full plate.
After leaving our various backpacks and tired knapsacks next to the intimidating police officer that asked each diner if they were carrying weapons of any sort—which, gratefully, no one was—I filed into the large cafeteria, a sign pointing the way; a wide variety of eaters from the pensively famished to the frustratingly boisterous grabbed their trays and took their seat, eating somewhat quickly.