Another blue sky, another reminder: Never forget
The first thing you notice is the sky.
It is everywhere. And it is haunting.
I am standing in the middle of nowhere in Stoystown, Pa., staring at a deep blue sky.
The sky seemed to wrap around me as I turned off Route 30 and started the long, winding trek toward my destination.
I would spend most of my time here on a sunny, crisp, but very cold Sunday afternoon staring at the sky. And wondering about a day most of us will never be able to forget.
For some reason the sky seems very close here, an empty field literally in the middle of nowhere that will forever be seared into our consciousness.
Standing at the Flight 93 Memorial will do that to you.
This was not my original destination. My son is getting married this summer in western Pennsylvania. My wife and I planned a trip to check out the venue they have chosen, where we also plan to hold the rehearsal dinner.
I’m not all that familiar with western Pennsylvania. All I know is that those of us here in the eastern part of the state who are constantly lamenting the loss of open space should jump on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and see the rest of the state. I assure you there is plenty of open space available.
I knew that the Flight 93 Memorial was in the general area. But it’s not actually in Shanksville. It’s in a place called Stoystown.
What I did not expect was to drive right past it. There are no garish billboards announcing this hallowed ground. No gift shops. No ticky tack that pockmarks so much of our roads.
We had gotten off the Turnpike and were traveling on Route 30 toward our destination when we encountered a very small sign on the side of the road. It delivered a powerful message: Flight 93 Memorial: 2 miles.
The feelings starting washing over me all over again.
I looked at the sky, and again I noticed the brilliant blue, eerily similar to that glorious morning on Sept. 11, 2001. It’s always the thing that has stayed with me about that day, how such a gorgeous morning, and such a brilliant blue sky, could be marred forever by a plume of smoke rising from the World Trade Center in New York City.
There are no skyscrapers here. There is only sky, one that seems very close as you stand in this vast open space.
The road from Route 30 to the Memorial is long and winding. It takes a few minutes to get there.
You are immediately struck by a couple of things. There is absolutely nothing there. And the sky is everywhere.
There is a stark Visitors Center, where I am told you can listen to some of the phone calls made by the heroic crew and passengers aboard Flight 93.
That’s not what I came for. I was here to cross another item off my ever-lengthening bucket list, to visit the site where Flight 93, which had taken off from Newark International Airport in New Jersey for San Francisco, been commandeered by terrorists, then slammed into the ground during a struggle by the crew and passengers to retake the plane before it could reach the terrorists’ destination - Washington, D.C.
You get out of your car and there is a small kiosk with some general information. There are a few signs containing general information and the names of the crew. And I am again biting my lip when I see one of the very first names listed: Deborah Jacobs Welsh, flight attendant. She was from Delaware County. We wrote several stories about her.
Eventually, you walk along a path to the solemn site where Flight 93 slammed into the Earth. They have filled in the crater. There is a boulder there now that marks the spot.
You would think that you would spend all your time staring at that spot. But I could not stop staring at the sky, and the way it seemed so much closer out here in this vast expanse of open space.
I wondered what people must have seen that fateful day. I kept trying to imagine a large jet nosediving into the ground. It would seem to me that the plane must have been visible for a fair amount of time, that’s how close the sky seems.
I try not to think about what was going on inside that plane. While at the same time reminding myself never to forget.
There are marble slabs at the memorial site that again list the names of all those on board. I run my fingers over the one containing the name of Deborah Jacobs Welsh. I see the one with Scott Beamer’s name. He is credited with leading the uprising by the passengers and crew to retake the plane. By that time, they knew what was going on, the plane’s new destination, and the fact that they had to do something to stop it.
Due to their heroics, Flight 93 never made it to the nation’s capital.
It will remain forever in a barren, desolate stretch of open space outside Shanksville, Pa.
I’m glad I had the chance to visit.
I think every American should try to get there, just to stand in the middle of nowhere and stare at the sky.
I tell people all the time that the thing I remember most about the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, was how blue that sky was.
The sky is much closer in Shanksville. It kind of swallows you up, unimaginably constricting in a vast expanse of open space, with the weight of history pressing down upon you.
You stare at that beautiful sky. Then you stare at that boulder in the middle of a field.
You thank those who gave their life in that field.
And you vow, once again, to never forget.