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America that is an empire that will do anything to oppress people outside the United States looking for answers next time on from 5:00 tonight at 9 here on WQED 30. When you look at like 360 a fleeting move a lifelong love. It all began with a chance encounter under the legendary clock every time you met. There there were 30 or 40 of them all sometimes of the one you were going to meet didn't show you go off with another one that was stood up. They discovered the magic of the place and time. Just one of the stories you'll see when you look at life 360 Friday night at 9:00 here on WQED 13. You catch any episode of that he will be fine without you. Television flashed up on your PC and it's on demand. Welcome back to the queue. Coming up with brothers plane crash to the olive oil all of this is about.
Well Stacey 300 people to the world in one place and there were no survivors. Shanksville Somerset County forever changed on September the 11th visit Shanksville as it transitions from tiny town to what some call the site of the first victory against terror. Also tonight an interview with David McCullough the author Prize winner. We take you to the Hall of Fame. See the new inductees up big night with big stars at a musical museum made in Sharon hear our share count. Now I want to thank everybody. Good
evening I'm Stacey Smith and welcome to as air strikes continue today in Afghanistan. People in the United States gathered for a moment of silence one month ago today terrorists attacked New York and Washington and caused a plane crash in Somerset County. And tonight the people of Shanksville reflect on the tragedy that put there on the international map. Correspondent Tony Caruso has tonight's cover story. It's a chilly but sunny day Somerset County kids ride their bikes. Folks walk to the corner store. It's a picture of small town America. The landscape has changed. So what's the chances of something like that happening.
In Somerset there are state police sergeant Patrick Madigan began September 11th. Like most of us watching the events in New York in D.C. We never expected what happened next. I made the comment to the lieutenant at that time. Don't worry Lieutenant there's no terrorist targets in Somerset County and it's about a minute after that we got a 9 1 1 call about a hijacked plane over Somerset with a bomb on it. My first thought was Well now the rumors are going to start in about 30 seconds after that one of the troopers lives up at Indian Lake. He called and he said he just heard a lot explosions and it shook his whole house. When I first got there I thought to myself This couldn't be a plane crash because there was nothing more than a hole in the ground and some since treason it was obvious from the beginning that there were no survivors.
One month after the crash crews from United continue to work here shoring up the site. This time last month there were hundreds of police officers and investigators here. They are all gone now. But one thing remains the Orioles to the victims were onboard Flight 93. This private memorial overlooking the site is filled with flowers left behind by family members. But this public memorial not far away just keeps on growing. Hundreds of people visit here each week some from just miles away. Others from across the country. Sharon Nicolae and her friends made the trip from the Mon Valley. Tell me why you want to come here. It's just give credit to the people of Boston lots and lots of the work here and they did a lot to this country because we're going
to need to know where that they are. We just wanted to stop to say our prayer for all the families and people that lost their lives. John and his family traveled here from Portage Cambria County. It's home and I'm without words. That said all of this you know where our nation come together. The Old Glory fly in the dark. President I'm sorry I was so choked up you know we all stand behind to reste trial lives in Shanksville. She visits the site often drive past almost every day and I stop and I come to see who people leave things every day and sometimes she longed to meet some of the relatives of the people that actually died on the plane. What do you say to them. It's hard to know what to say exactly.
Doctor your condolences. If it's a mother or father you thank them for raising their child to be heroes they all were on that flight. And jury says all of Shanksville has reason to be thankful. Investigators say just four more seconds in the air and the plane would have hit this elementary school. There are so many emotions you can't even describe specifically or you're at a loss for words or how you feel about this happening pretty much right in your backyard. This is from Mesa Arizona police sergeant Madigan and his troopers find comfort in the dozens of cards and letters they've received from people across the country like this one from some school students in Ohio. Well one says stay strong good things will come. May God bless you and your family stay strong our prayers are with you all.
And on this display the troopers mounted letters of thanks from local children. We're sorry about the tragedy that had happened. We are thankful for the effort everyone has put forth put forth in this investigation. I hope you are able to find a black box before Myra gets this knows my dad. Trooper Terry Wilson let him know I said hi. A big reason to smile but the healing process is far from over for everyone in Shanksville. The tragedy of September 11th has become a deep part of their lives still as they cope in this tiny town they find strength and support from within the people up there were fantastic to our people. They opened their hearts and homes. It affected this town that much the way they had the whole country was affected. It seemed to bring everybody together.
Thank you. Now today comes word that a journalism Foundation based in Miami will contribute as much as a half million dollars to build a memorial for the victims of Flight 93 to call companies on the property where the plane went down. And Stacey they have already said they are considering considering donating that ground so the memorial can be built. And you say there is money coming in from some other sources also. There are we talked about this during the piece in Mitsubishi and Warren Dale has given $100000 to the Pittsburgh Foundation which is overseeing the funds. And in Somerset County commissioners there they have already set aside $20000 for any memorial to be built. Very nice perspective. Thank you Tony. Well Americans are certainly proud of their history and coming up next you will meet an author who has captured that history many times with great success. David McCullough is next. You're watching on Q magazine because these foundations care enough about local
television to help pay for it. The Howard Hinds and the Everly foundation the Richard King Mellon Foundation the McEwen foundation the Pittsburgh foundation the Henry L. Hillman foundation the Jewish Health Care Foundation and the great people down there corporate funding is provided by UPMC health system UPMC health system different. Some communities throughout western Pennsylvania each and every day we go beyond our walls and reach out to the neighborhoods we serve UPMC Help System 1 8 8 8 3 8 3 UPMC and we couldn't do it without you. The members of the events of September 11th have had a measurable effect on the consumer. In fact retail book sales are down as much as 15 percent. Now that's all except for certain books like those on bioterrorism or the Taliban. And there's one book in particular that's doing very well. It's about America's second president. Author David McCullough refers to
John Adams as the voice of freedom. I recently talked with McCullough about this timely work. Welcome to NQ. Thank you very glad to be here. I'm sure that the question that you're getting at across the country with this is why John Adams. I think the attention is long overdue. We've ignored this man who in many ways was second only to Washington and being responsible for the independence of this country and for the success of holding the republic together in the first 12 years of our independence as a nation. But beyond that he's a terrific story. And and he and he provides us with access to that time and to himself and to his family and to his love affair and to his long love story with Abigail in a way that none of the others do.
Do you ever feel sometimes like you might have been in some and a private conversation and you have that moment. Oh often often. And I also feel and have felt with other books that I know those people better close or more intimately than I know actual people in real life because they are divulging things they are they're opening themselves up in their letters in a way that most people never do even if people you know well. And that's because they're not writing to us they're reading to each other. And they will not ever be dishonest with each other that's for sure. Do you think that was part of their romance was the correspondence. Well it was a big part and that's a very good question. And the fact that they were separated so long nearly 10 years all together because of his service to the country. We have the letters if they'd been together they wouldn't have been written and very few women of the 18th century wrote the way she did.
At that in such quantity and also with such extraordinary literary talent she really was a very gifted writer. They both were. He detailed he had detailed descriptions of everybody that he came across as part as part of Continental Congress. And he's the only one that left just such descriptions. The others who were there who wrote nothing of the kind in their wonderful descriptions he would have made a very good reporter a very good writer. Adams is is different from what most people imagine him that most people think of him as a as a wealthy Bostonian. Well he was neither. He wasn't wealthy and he wasn't a Bostonian. John Adams was the first president of the people as he was a farmer's son. He himself was a farmer. He had no money a small farm which he worked at very hard farmed all of his life. And Adams of course would have benefited from that because his own father had to sell the land so that he could go to school. Well it was it was it was a an article of faith in the Adams family that you never ever sold any land. Land was the only true wealth.
And the only time his father's ever known to ever sold any land was when he sold 10 acres to help pay for John to go to Harvard. And what John went largely on. On a scholarship and you have to remember what I read was that people say well he was a Harvard man you had he had everything. Well Harvard had four buildings faculty of seven and about 100 students most of whom were as he was about 15 or 16 years old. John Adams the second president was the was the most broadly and the most deeply read American of his day. More so even than Jefferson. Yeah it's mind boggling when reading your book saying the books that they read I thought oh my gosh we don't even got near those books. Well he was fluent in Greek Latin French which he taught himself the French when you had to go to France to become a diplomat. And he and he never lost that love of learning. I think that that prevails throughout the book is that this is a man of a very strong code of honor high sense of
purpose and moral aptitude. R R is he great because he was in a great time. He said that he said the times have made me I am but an ordinary man. I don't think he meant that. He was certainly not an ordinary man. He never put his moral compass away in the closet. And I think if he was afraid of anything it was dishonor. Why do we only think Jefferson and Franklin. Why don't we think. Why isn't John Adams president our minds why does your book have to come out and educate us about this. Well it's a very good question and I'm not sure there's a he answer. It may have to do with the fact that he was only a one term president. We're not we don't tend to celebrate one term presidents unless they've been killed while president. And the fact that he he wasn't tall he wasn't handsome he wasn't glamorous. It may also have to do with the fact that he was not inclined to tell us what we wanted to hear.
He was not inclined to be such an overt irrepressible optimist as Jefferson was. Americans are very optimistic people. He wasn't inclined to believe in pure democracy with a lowercase D. He didn't think that all men were created equal. He said look around. Some are taller stronger some are more beautiful. Some are born with handicaps some are have the advantage of being born into affluence or have the advantage of education in their background. We're not equal. But he said we're all equal in the eyes of God and we must all be equal before the law. But we continue our ever really keep voting in great men again. Well I think there's a variety of answers that why did it why was it that this little country with only about two million five hundred thousand people could give rise to such talent give rise to such a devotion to the ideal of the public good.
It wasn't just that they were very bright or that they or that they accomplished things they really cared. They were all trained in the classics dispair also very important. It wasn't just they spoke or read Latin and Greek. They had they had been marinated in the ideals of Greece and Rome and the idea of virtue. The idea of honor the idea the ideal of public service not a civics book slogan but laying your your treasure your life on the line when they pledge their lives their fortunes their sacred honor in the words of the Declaration of Independence. They really meant that they were putting their heads in the noose they were every each of them signed that document was declaring himself a traitor. They seem to move about and not be caught. And I was wondering why they were never captured and stifled. They seem to have quite a bit of freedom. During this time well they did because the British controlled all the ports and they were very careful
about where they went and one of the one of the great examples of Adam's courage is that he set sail from Massachusetts on the American flag of the Boston in the winter of 17 78 and no one ever went to see it that on the North Atlantic in the winter time. But he went to he went to see knowing that the British were lying right off the shore waiting just to capture somebody like him and to take him to the Tower of London and and doubtless hang him as an example. And not only did did he put his own life on the line he took his little boy with a 10 year old John Quincy and everything everything that could have gone wrong went wrong on that voyage. He later told Jefferson it was a metaphor for his whole life. So he was not without humor that's for Sawyer he was really he was one of the most delightfully humorous figures of his age. He and Franklin were the two that had the most active sense of humor and thank goodness
and Abigail did too. They were both really quite funny and enjoyed humor and enjoyed their own humor which has certainly made. A far more delightful six years for me where you know that what you do this research and everyone else do your research for research on family. Well I don't but I spoke not long ago to the New England geneological society and as a surprise gift they gave me. They had done my genealogy back 13 or 14 generations and it was full of discoveries and surprises and all extremely interesting and children part of the interest. Well they are but my family has been here in Pittsburgh for a very long time about the time of the revolution. Part of that big Scotch Irish migration that came over and my my to grow two of my brothers are still here. George McCullough Max McCullough and my parents lived in the same house that I we go grew up
in England. Dr. I try to come back two or three times a year I looked at Sperry the architecture of the neighborhoods the particular lingo that we speak of that. You know it for example that nobody outside of Pittsburgh has any idea what you mean when you say I'm going to go read up my room and I found that that is a is an expression that must have been used in Scotland because in Robert Louis Stevenson is kidnapped. There's a point where his mother tells him to go read up your room and there it is and I thought well it's not just Pittsburgh it's it comes from the old country. I had heard that so I heard the same thing that it was the Scotch-Irish and I thought where I don't know how they're getting that but they're also saying that some of the inflections. Well the word that became you know that is a quick answer to that yeah bad don't be so yeah I use that when I said that once and it's among some people in New York that when we meet and I thought well that's a pretty good word.
They've never heard it. Well I looked it up in the dictionary and Neb is the beak of a bird. So if you're nippy you're sticking your beak in other people's business and the sidewalk is watching the sidewalk is roll slipping. You have you know we've lost today. Something needs war. Yeah not to be washed. Yes and that this is a little working too little. Thank you so much for being here and wish we had was kind of light. We wish we did. David McCullough won the Pulitzer Prize for his book on Truman and he also wrote the definitive book on the Johnstown flood. Now we'll be right back with a visit to the vocal group Hall of Fame. Never heard of that. Well it's practically in our backyard. That's next on cue. You want to know more about on Q magazine. Recent stories upcoming guests now on q community calendar and of course viewer feedback. It's all on our website. WQED. Just follow the links
on cue. Have you heard of the vocal group Hall of Fame. Tonight there's a new batch of inductees on cue music contributor Phil Harris traveled to Mercer County to attend the ceremony and to find out more about this musical museum made in Sharon high point Cher P.A. for this year's induction ceremony for the vocal group Hall of Fame. In addition to favorites like the Beatles Gladys Knight The Pips and the Lennon Sisters. The class of 2001 includes some local favorites The Vogues and the Lettermen.
The Vogues are originally from Turtle Creek and are known for their hits. Turn around look at me. Magic Town. Five o'clock in the morning. We have a clock will keep us from actually Nashville Tennessee. They get to tracks international. They flew the tracks up to Pittsburgh and we put the vocals on in Pittsburgh and as soon as we heard it we felt that we felt that song that it was going to be a big one.
But needless to say we didn't know I was going to do that and I'd like to take this opportunity to to thank Tony for his dream come true. Tony thank you. How does it feel to be a member of the purple rain. Well it's it's a little bit overwhelming you know it's something you always hope for you know to be recognized for your achievements throughout your life you know and this is kind of a culmination of one of those dreams you know that you have as a kid. So very thankful today. Believe me I'm very happy. Excited to be here and I want to thank every theory the Lettermen have been performing for 43 years and every least 71 albums. They're best known for their songs going out of my head so I Can't Take My Eyes Off You know when I fall in love and put your head on my shoulder.
Oh the music our new album guidebook series called them the last of the great collegiate style vocal groups. After more than 71 albums which is really incredible. The group that's amazing after more than 71 albums the group can still fit into their trademark collegiate sweaters. That's pretty good. They're finally getting their due. I'm proud to induct into the vocal group Hall of Fame the number one adult contemporary vocal group of the 60s and we've got most of them here. We have seen each other occasionally but the first time the three of us have sung together since 1967 was this afternoon in the automobile coming over here. Letterman founder Tony tool is a native of sherry but she also helped found the vocal group Hall of Fame along with Sharon businessman Jim winner in 1998.
It's interesting with the Letterman and a vocal group Hall of Fame you've come full circle today by being inducted as part of the class of truth. Thousand and One I'm surprised that you haven't since you are one of the founding members were surprised you weren't inducted earlier. That's exactly why wasn't there a couple people that audition for us that Gary beat out. Well it played only incorrect thing to do was to elect to let him be on the nominee ballot here beginning because let's say we would have been a doctor what would people say. But he's a doctor because he did this just in that district. So I purposely held look at a lot of that for three years. Not one not two but for three years to make sure because you know it's not a just to be a museum you're going to marry the power things here the whole thing got through transition all through the state of Pennsylvania now we're getting some grants because it's 100 percent nonprofit called Mr winners of financial
input for your donation. And the men you know three million dollars to put some of the buildings together. Here's what a prince of a man a wonderful man. Now we're kind of on our own we got is this to this point. And now with the state funding we could we hope to be one of the top attractions in Pennsylvania for NQ. I'm feeling her. With across the street from the vocal group Hall of Fame the barbershop quartet Hall of Fame just opened in August. Now look at what's happening tomorrow. On cue profiling in the Muslim community stereotyping unfair connection to terrorist activities. To morrow on the Friday forum wants to talk about it. Join regular burger Ruthann Baker and delve into this very serious topic the Friday forum. Thank you for joining us. We will see you back here live again tomorrow night at 7:30.
Good night. You're watching local television.
The Richard Mellon Foundation Foundation the Pittsburgh foundation the Jewish health care.
Series
OnQ
Episode Number
2194
Contributing Organization
WQED (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/120-8605qt1f
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Description
Description
CS: Shanksvill 1 month later Pkg (Tonia) NM: David McCullough (Carol Pkg) MI: Vocal hall of fame Pkg (Phil)
Broadcast Date
2001-10-11
Created Date
2001-10-11
Genres
News
Magazine
Topics
News
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:29:40
Embed Code
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Credits
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WQED-TV
Identifier: 18982 (unknown)
Format: Betacam: SP
Generation: Master
Duration: 27:52:28
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Citations
Chicago: “OnQ; 2194,” 2001-10-11, WQED, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed May 28, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-120-8605qt1f.
MLA: “OnQ; 2194.” 2001-10-11. WQED, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. May 28, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-120-8605qt1f>.
APA: OnQ; 2194. Boston, MA: WQED, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-120-8605qt1f