Flight 93 memorial is temporary, effect isn't

As I drove up Skyline Road toward the Flight 93 memorial in Pennsylvania, the pavement gave way to gravel, and my windshield filled with sky. It was all but impossible not to think of airplanes, and one airplane in particular. I could almost see it in its last moments, flying low, too low, too large in my field of vision. I ceased to notice the sound of my car crunching along on the gray pebbles, or any sound at all.

Suddenly a large heap of crumpled red, white and blue debris appeared on the ground just off to the right, and for a moment I doubted my senses. Could the plane still be here, just beyond that farm field, its wreckage piled high and abandoned? I blinked and tried to shake some sense back into my head.

My stomach unclenched when I realized that the pile was indeed a scrap heap, but not one for aircraft. Rather, it was a junkyard for vending machines, most of them mangled and bearing the Pepsi logo. As I continued along the hill, the surreal image disappeared.

Parking my car in the small lot at the memorial, I pulled up to a gray metal guardrail dotted with bumper stickers and handwritten wishes. "Terrorists are cowards," said one sticker. "Power of Pride," said another. "The Price's of Bedford -- we salute all," was nearby.

The winds were strong, pushing against the car door as I opened it, and the half-dozen flags flying above the site were stiffly pointing back in the direction I came from. Only three other vehicles were in sight -- a midsize car, a green pickup and a sheriff's SUV with an officer at the wheel.

An older man in a FDNY baseball cap was talking with the officer at the window. The man in the cap was Nevin Lambert, whose nametag marked him as an "ambassador" to the memorial. He's a volunteer, and when asked if he's any relation to the Lambertsville Road that leads to Skyline Road, he said yes -- his relatives arrived in the area from Germany 180 years ago.

A witness

Lambert handed me a couple of brochures printed up by the National Park Service. They weren't glossy like those from other parks, probably because the memorial is temporary. Three portable toilets sat at the far end of the parking lot, and a small gray shelter the size of a couple of ice shacks served as a refuge from inclement weather (it was shipped in from one of the national seashores). Commissions and committees are in negotiations over the site and designs of the permanent memorial, which Lambert said is scheduled to open in 2007.

Lambert pointed to a white house across a small valley; that's where he lives. He was an eyewitness to the crash and recalls how the jet swooped low over a couple of knolls -- silently -- before plowing into the earth. He guided me through a ring binder of pictures: A cloud of smoke rising from the site. An aerial view of children standing in front of their school in a formation that spells "thank you," a message for the flight's passengers and crew. A row of federal investigators combing the fields. Family pictures of the people who were on board.

It wasn't cold out despite the whipping winds, but the place felt sad on an overcast spring day, and Lambert's good nature was welcome.

He pointed downhill, past benches marked with victims' names, toward an American flag in the middle of a not-yet-green field, and said to look beyond, to a fenced-off lump of earth. I could barely make out a person in a red jacket; Lambert said it must be a family member of one of the victims, as those are the only people allowed in that area. He asks if I knew Tom Burnett Jr., because he was from Minnesota too. I did not, but I felt a loss anyway, as I looked at the expressions of grief all around.

Mementos

A section of high chain-link fence was bedecked with American flags, artificial flowers, crosses, baseball caps, license plates, even a laminated newspaper article about a Bible being found in the wreckage. There was what some people call a "Bathtub Virgin Mary," an array of messages of hope and defiance and a T-shirt calling for the liberation of Tibet. Everything seemed to be fairly new, and Lambert said that the fence is cleared every week so that items aren't damaged by the elements. They're being kept for use in the permanent memorial. So far, Lambert said, the temporary one has drawn more than 200,000 people.

I wrote my name on a small piece of paper so Lambert could add it to the list of visitors, and a man from Florida wrote his name below mine. Soon he, like the sheriff, was gone.

I took a few more pictures, trying to steady my camera against the winds, then I shook Lambert's hand and headed to my car. Sitting behind the wheel, I again faced the bumper stickers and graffiti on the guardrail. But I couldn't stop looking at the sky.

The Flight 93 Temporary Memorial is about 25 minutes from the Somerset exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike (Interstate Hwys. 70 and 76). There are few signs to the site, but locals can tell you how to get there. Directions and a map are available on the Web at www.flt93memorial.org.

Jim Foti is at jfoti@startribune.com