2 blue skies, 2 unforgettable memories
Sixteen years. That’s not really it?
The length of time it takes to reach adulthood, or at least get a driver’s license, which some might argue is the same thing.
It’s been that long since as gorgeous a September morning as you can imagine was turned into something so ugly that none of us can forget it.
But this year my memory is different.
Oh, I haven’t forgotten the blue sky. It will always be the blue sky that I remember most about Sept. 11, 2001.
I had just returned from the Wawa a block away from our old Primos office and sat down at the news desk. That’s when I glanced up over my shoulder and got my first peek at something I will never forget.
That gorgeous blue sky was now streaked with a plume of gray smoke. It appeared building. I turned up TV.
Talk about another world. Remember, this was before Twitter. Before Facebook. Before we received information on our phones in the blink of an eye.
I quickly learned the smoke was rising from the World Trade Center in New York City.
Our national horror had begun.
We would never think the same way again.
And I would never look blue sky again. Until last winter. That’s when I gazed up at a very similar blue sky. And was almost overcome by emotion. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I just stood there with my mouth agape and tried to take a to possible, be rising from the sound on of the terror at is a all in. I was standing in a field in town called Stoystown, Pa.
Welcome to the Flight 93
The first thing you need to know is that despite all the references to Shanksville, the site of the memorial is actually outside that tiny town.
It’s located several Route 30.
To be honest, right past it.
When we headed out to the Laurel Valley for a visit to Green Gables in Jennerstown, the site chosen by my son and his fiancée for their summer wedding, I knew that the Flight 93 Memorial was in that general location.
I made a note in my mind that I wanted to pay a visit.
I almost missed it. It’s marked only by a small direction sign, alerting you that the memorial is a few miles ahead on the left.
It is not visible from Route 30. It seems like the National Park Service must have bought a massive swath of land surrounding the site. You drive several miles along a winding road before coming to the memorial site.
Unfortunately, we chose one of the coldest days of the winter to visit.
Maybe that is what made the sky seem so blue. It was the first thing I noticed when you got out of the car. You are surrounded by that blue sky. It’s then that you realize the horror that must have unfolded on that hillside 16 years ago.
There is nothing else there. It dawned on me that everyone in that area must have seen the plane as it came in. I learned many things I did not know during my visit. For instance, I did not know that the plane actually had flown past the site before it was commandeered and that it was actually heading back – toward Washington, D.C. – when the passengers it I miles almost a Memorial. off drove and crew made stand.
I also learned the plane was literally going straight down – nose first – when it plowed into the earth. It seemed to me that everyone in that region likely saw it as it made its horrifying descent – or at least heard it when it slammed into the ground.
The massive crater created by Flight 93 has been filled in. The entire area was considered by officials to be a grave site. It’s likely remains were scattered everywhere.
Today the site where Flight 93 returned to Earth is marked their valiant by a large boulder.
On the stone path that leads you down to the site, the names of those who lost their lives that day are memorialized on marble pillars. One of the first names I saw was Debby Jacobs Welsh, a flight attendant on Flight 93 who was a Delaware County native.
I told everyone who visited for my son’s wedding in July that they should definitely make the 20-minute drive to Stoystown to the memorial.
My original intention was return myself.
But as my wife and I prepared for the ride home, I decided to against it.
A warning. The emotion of the site – and the knowledge of what happened there – is a bit overwhelming.
Today I will think visit to Stoystown. And that blue sky. Both of them . about that