Shanksvill April 28

Rain was already falling in the morning when Ron Ferguson of the Bedford Rotary came to take me back to the road. There was a sullen sound in his voice when he asked if I wanted to visit the temporary Flight 93 memorial near Shanksville.

Flight 93 memorial

It was only about 4 miles out of your way, he said. I answered yes right away. I did not know what to expect.

The turnoff was 8 miles outside of town and then about 5 miles down the narrow winding road through the village dead ending at a patch of earth beneath a path of grey sky that for many had become sacred. On a chain linked fence the varied and veregated wishes and aspirations of those touched by the tradgedy hung almost motionless. Benches and stones with names, plastic flowers and stuffed animals, pictures and poems, prayers and pieces of life left behind looking out over a verdant plain were overwhelming, and I was left with out words.

Earthmover

Behind the site a huge earth mover seemed stuck, and for a long moment I was stuck too, not wanting to leave, but knowing that I had to go on, that to walk was something important I had to do for those of us that perished here. In the end I take them with me, along with all of us that suffered and perished in all the wars, a wagon train, 17-miles.

Windmills

We drive to my drop-off point in relative silence. Ron talks about windmills and solar energy, bio-fuels and nuclear reactors. In Bedford there is a division among the community on how to proceed with alternative energy development. Windmills are not in favor with some, a stance that they take over the landscape.

But as I walk the road to Somerset, my heart this day is not with windmills, but with the mystery of the wind, and it is not until they appear like ghosts in the mist over the bare trees of the woods that this reverie is broken.