On a warm, cloudless Tuesday in late summer, I had a hearty breakfast in preparation for a day of travel. I lived in Penn State's dormitories (Hamilton Hall, among West Halls, for you alumni), so I took my time and had "all I could eat" at the dining commons connected to my building.

Dennis and I had done a lot of planning for this trip -- a lot of wading through the intricacies of airline and travel Web sites. By breakfast on our departure day I was relatively mellow. I felt pleasant anticipation at the prospect of almost two weeks spent racing at Duathlon Worlds and traveling Italy with a good friend. We'd even worked out how we would meet up in the main "Termini" train station in Rome after our separate flights.

I walked with a bouncy eagerness down the commons stairway, on my way to the mailbox, with a cone of soft, vanilla frogurt in hand. (A man should be allowed to have frozen yogurt as a breakfast dessert, shouldn't he?) About ten yards from the mailboxes, just behind a corkboard-covered wall, there was a television. Usually the benches that surrounded that TV were almost empty. But on that sunny day a real crowd was gathering.

"Must have been a great football game last night. Or is it time for MTV's video music awards?" I muttered.

I wish now, with every fiber of my being, that I had been right, because the TV was instead showing live news coverage. It was September 11, 2001, and a plane had just hit the World Trade Center.

I raced back up the stairs and through my dorm. People were talking everywhere, and I could hear dozens of TVs tuned to the same horrible thing. I flung open the door to my room, where my room mate Rob was, as usual, engrossed in a role-playing video game at his computer. I remember yelling that we needed to "turn on the damned TV," because something was going on. After that, the memory turns fuzzy, but I'm sure Rob and I did exactly as millions of Americans -- and millions of people around the world -- were doing just then; we stood frozen in horror and disbelief. We watched the billowing smoke on the screen and held on to a futile hope that it was somehow not real, that there weren't really people in those buildings or on those planes.

Maybe it was as I had first thought downstairs in the commons lobby; it was really incredible special effects for some movie. Maybe it was all some colossal series of accidents. Maybe I had never woken up that morning. A thousand maybes didn't stop what was happening, not even for a moment.

Eventually I came out of my daze of hopeful maybes and realized that, as far as anyone in my family knew, I was either in one of the Washington, D.C., airports or already on a plane . It took about 30 minutes cut through the gridlock of an overloaded telephone system and reach my frantic mother. Once she knew that I was safe and sound, and at home, I could call Dennis and try to figure out what we were going to do next.

That afternoon, we did what any duathletes would do in the face of a world turned topsy-turvy. We called up our friend Scott and went for a long run. Then we went home and sat listening to the "on hold" muzak of the airlines' customer-service numbers, like thousands of other would-be passengers.

It retrospect I know it was petty and selfish for me to be thinking of getting to a race when over 3,000 everyday people had just been killed. But at the time such egocentric preoccupation shielded me from too much soul searching. It may have kept me in a mental state resembling sanity.

I had a task: get to Italy. I threw myself into that task, and every minute I spent pondering a dizzying mix of hypothetical flights and rail schedules was a minute not spent dwelling on catastrophe.

Every day I called Continental Airlines, and every day I got the same response. They couldn't fly until the FAA said so, and the average passenger watching the news knew as much about the FAA's position as the airline customer-service people. They could be flying again the next day, the next week, or the next year. Nobody knew.

Dennis and I turned to a local travel agent who had helped me in the past. Dennis had booked with Air France, and to say that they were being difficult would be a serious understatement. By late Wednesday, he'd intelligently decided to call it quits and take a refund.

I still wanted to get there -- so badly, in fact, that for a while I had laid out an elaborate scheme involving a late flight to Frankfurt, Germany. That would be followed by an overnight train trip to the World's host city of Rimini, Italy. I would have arrived a few hours before the start of my race. By Friday morning, however, even the Frankfurt route had been blocked. I called the travel agent once more a bit before noon.

It was my last chance. Acts by devious men had changed everything. I would need an act of God to get into the air. I got one.

God was, at the time, pummeling the Caribbean and South Florida with a tropical storm. Said storm blocked a flight that was supposed to have gone from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami, then to Philadelphia and finally to Rome, Italy. But because of the storm, the plane never landed in Miami. It flew straight to Philly, and somewhere along it's trip up the East Coast, travel agents like mine suddenly got a couple dozen newly opened seats from Philadelphia to Rome. I took one of those seats before we could figure out how it happened.

The problem then became getting to Philadelphia, in less than three hours, to make the transatlantic flight. The drive from State College to Philly takes about three and a half hours. So, I asked about connecting flights from State College. I expected that I'd already exceeded my lifetime share of good luck, but there were seats on a connection leaving State College in an hour.

Rob and I rushed my bags, which had sat packed for almost a week, from our floor to my car and high-tailed it to the airport. Aside from the hard looks from the policeman standing guard at the deserted airport parking lot, things went smoothly. Of course, a scruffy young man arriving at a small airport with a giant black box -- on September 14, 2001 -- probably looked damn suspicious to that cop. Perhaps I was so obviously suspicious that he figured I was too bungling to be a real threat.

I used an airport payphone to call the team hotel in Rimini and left a message for Tim Yount, the team manager, that I was on my way over. If the airlines were working on anything like a normal schedule, I should be in Rimini Saturday evening, I said. I don't think the guy taking the message believed me. No one else scheduled to leave on or after the eleventh had found alternate plans.

At the Philadelphia airport, I watched CNN's coverage of President Bush's first visit to Ground Zero. The terminal was quiet, and everyone was watching the TVs with me. I was too tired and confused to use the layover to ponder just how lucky I'd been. The best I could do was pull out the small spiral-bound notebook that was supposed to be my travel journal; instead its first few pages were full of airline, hotel, and other relevant phone numbers. What follows here are edited excerpts from the rest of that journal.

14 September 2001, Philadelphia

Italians surround me at the end of the Philly airport's "A" Terminal. I wonder how long they've been trying to get back home. They mostly look like middle-aged business travelers who've left spouses and children back home.

The Italians rattle off quick rants into payphones. It's midnight in Italy right now, so they're probably dragging loved ones from bed to say they're coming home.

An American woman, maybe in her sixties, talks slowly and sweetly to the toddler with her. The little girl is on a sort of leash with a chest harness. It mostly keeps her from straying too far.

Our (delayed) boarding time is just a little over an hour away. Several surprisingly jovial-looking U.S. Customs officials have gathered around Gate A12. A few of them cross their arms over their chests.

Jets angle off into the sky to my left. A plane to Los Angeles boards to capacity. ("Rows 25 through 35, please.") Three days ago, planes just like that left Boston for LA but never made it. I pray that these people have much better luck.

"Pray" is and odd choice of words. Perhaps "wish" would be better. To whom would I be praying, when I can't make myself believe in any God that would let thousands of ordinary people die in terror - terror that came out of the clear, blue, summer sky?

It was about 60 degrees and cloudy when Penn State students gathered to pray around Old Main. I was listening to the chiming bells of the building's clock tower in one ear and Continental Airlines' "hold" muzak through the phone in my other ear.

"Sorry you had to step over my feet," I say.

"Don't ... speak English," replies the stranger, with a heavy Italian accent.

We both smile. Soon I'll change places with him. I'll be the one in a distant airport who doesn't speak the local language. The stranger has style, as do most of the other Italians around. I kind of envy that style and poise. It's something the American yuppies in penny loafers, across the aisle, will never master.

***

Still in Philly's airport, watching CNN. Dubya looks, for the first time, almost presidential.

The window of the dorm room below ours had a sign that said, "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind," when I left. Now the anchor on CNN is asking, "Why is a military response wrong?" The TV screens have bottom borders that read,"America's New War."

***

Airliner pilot to us passengers: "We got about two airplanes in front of us ... Air Force One is in the area, and no one flies in the same area ... If you want to reset your watches to European Daylight Time, it's now three-zero-four in the morning."

With what's gone on in the past few days, I could give two shits what time it is right now. Air Force One will be leaving Maguire Air Force Base in New Jersey, which is in the same flight space as our plane is supposed to use. We wait.

"Oh well, what the hell." One of the characters in "Catch 22" said something like that. There was another character called Major Major Major Major. The younger of my two sisters is a major, in the Air Force, but not at Maguire. She's in Florida, and getting drenched in a tropical storm. That's how I got this seat on this plane. No one could fly from Miami. Serendipity. I wish Dennis an Scott were here. Next year.

Three-one-four in the morning, European Daylight Time on September 15. Outside this motionless aircraft, lights blink rhythmically.

"We're standing by for a re-route ... I don't know whether Dubya's gettin' a haircut over there at Maguire, but we're lookin' at an indefinite delay.

Behind me, any delay stretches beyond "indefinite" as a two-year-old girl periodically screeches. Her mother (or grandmother) keeps praying out loud that this plane will take off soon. "No, no, no, Kira ... Honey, you cannot press that button!"

Of course, the attendants can't turn off the response to the button. They also can't get the president out of our airspace. And that damned red runway light in my peripheral vision can't stop its bloody flashing. And two-year-old Kira can't leave the GODDAMNED BUTTON alone.

Three-two-three in the morning, European Daylight Time. "We've shut off the engines to conserve fuel. We're still holding indefinitely." And Kira is still pushing the button. And Dubya is still getting his haircut. And the light is still blinking in my eye. And we are, in a word, still.

Three-three-zero in the morning in Roma, Italia, which I may someday reach.

15 September 2001, Somewhere in Italy

Roma fell behind us a half an hour ago. Outside the train, light green mountains pop up in a row along this valley. A tunnel, one of many, blackens the view for a moment. We're slowing. We must be nearing another town. The mountains slowly give way to hills.

We ride parallel to a highway, moving slightly faster than the car traffic.

A few minutes ago, a conductor came by on his rounds. He asked me about my bike case, which is standing up on end in the space beside my single seat. A woman across the aisle tried to translate for us; the conductor spoke little English and I almost no Italian. The woman said that the conductor said something to the effect that I couldn't have the bike box on the train, but he walked away without saying anything else. I hope they don't decide to kick me off the train.

Several seats away sit some women from a New York art school. They're traveling to Firenze, wooden boxes of paints in tow.

We just passed a field of withered sunflowers. The terrain looks more and more like a drier version of Central Pennsylvania. The irrigation ditches seem parched.

The conductor has yet to return.

To more easily read train schedules, I've set my watch to display time on the 24-hour style. It's 15:22 on Saturday, and we're well on our way toward Firenze, Bologna, and - if I were to forget to change trains in Bologna - Milano.

I should, barring any serious trouble, arrive in Rimini just in time for supper, which suites me fine. The two sandwiches I had at the last station, for which I paid 11,000 lire, did little to satiate me. I don't race until about noon tomorrow, so maybe I can gorge myself a bit tonight. I'm getting nauseous from thinking about food while riding in a seat that faces backwards. I'd better stop writing.

17 September 2001, Rimini, Italy

We raced yesterday.

As we stacked up in the holding pen, waiting for the start, a light rain began. We couldn't tell how much was rain and how much was spray from the public fountain next to us. We soon found, much to our disappointment, that most of it was rain. In fact, a large thunderstorm had descended on Rimini along with the athletes. The rain didn't quit until well after our race.

Yesterday morning had been beautiful - warm, with a soft breeze. Erik, who took bronze in his age group, had ideal conditions. I arrived at the venue just in time to see him finish the bike segment and begin his second run.

Erik, Holly, Jeffrey, Bethann, and everyone else I know from the duathlon community turned out later in the afternoon to cheer me as I got my ass handed to me by much better athletes (and those who had less dramatic pre-race travel).

Yesterday evening I celebrated, or perhaps consoled myself, with a lovely ham pizza and about half of Holly's tuna pizza (much better than it sounds, especially on the Adriatic coast of Italy). We also stopped for coconut iced cream before Hutch and I decided to excuse ourselves from the group for a night out on the town. (Note: If I had to give a very rough outline of Hutch's uniquely wonderful personality, I'd call it something of a cross between surfer dude, which he's not, and good-natured Pennsylvania farm boy, which he sort of is. And Hutch, if you're reading this, I hope you're smiling that great big smile of yours.)

The two of us found our way to the cafe/bar at which a table full of people from Team USA had run up a sizable drink tab. Team manager Tim Yount, I found, is pleasant and happy after a bit of wine, much as I would have expected. When Hutch and I arrived, Tim was feeling the vino.

Tim was talking with a friend of one of the team members. The friend was an obnoxious little drunk named Sam. Tim and Sam had each, at some point in their vastly different lives, attended Kansas State University. When they reached that realization, they rejoiced quite loudly. Tim, particularly, expressed his disbelief at volumes I had never heard him reach outside of racing encouragement.

We had a good laugh with the group, but that party was clearly dispersing - even as we had arrived. So, Hutch and I moved on.

After a brief stop to freshen up and make ourselves as presentable as possible, we left the center of town and made our way down the waterfront. Eventually, we ended up at Rock Island, a nightclub perched at the end of a rocky pier in the Adriatic.

As we reached the outside stairs to the club, we met two British girls named Layla and Pam. We had seen them approaching the pier just a little after us, and we decided it would be the "right" thing to do to introduce ourselves. Besides, it was a stormy evening, so perhaps we two fit lads could be of some help to damsels in distress.

At the ladies' suggestion (really), Hutch and I provided piggyback rides over the puddle that blocked the last few yards of walkway to the club. Both of the girls wore tight black pants, and I remember thinking that Pam, whom I carried, had rather strong thighs.

Once inside Rock Island, we found the usual commotion one would expect around midnight at a popular club. We also found a significant portion of the younger generation of Team Canada. Several of these young Canadians promptly surrounded and diverted Layla and Pam, and our gallant assistance from outside was quickly forgotten.

A petite Canadian brunette named Maybelline - or something close to that, as best I could tell over the loud music - told me that she'd placed in the top ten in her age group. Her voice had a lovely Quebecois accent, if there is such a thing as a lovely Quebecois accent. She studied fine arts, with an emphasis on fabrics, at the University of Montreal. That much information came only after great conversational effort on my part. Still trying, I asked about the small leather satchel she wore around her neck, which she eventually told me contained lavender.

"Why lavender?" I asked. She said nothing, so I gave up. Strike two for the evening.

At about that time, the increasing Canadian-ness of the crowd started to give the scene the eerie semblance of a displaced Tim Horton's. I later said as much to the Two Andreas, a pair of young, identically named ladies from Canada who had taken time out from traveling Europe to watch some old friends race. Hutch had quickly shifted gears after from Layla and Pam to bring the Two Andreas over to our region of the club floor.

The Two Andreas seemed amused with us, or at least with my high-energy "dancing" to Prodigy's quasi-techno "Smack My Bitch Up." One of the Andreas was wearing tight black pants - apparently and international fashion for 2001 - and a white tank top, the shoulders of which were fastened together with a row of metal snaps. These snaps intrigued me. I thought about suggesting that the two of us make an exit. Hutch seemed to have developed similar intentions toward Andrea Number Two. At least, it seemed, he would have preferred to share his hotel room with some young lady that evening, and Andrea seemed nice enough. He had clearly gone out on the prowl that evening; he'd even broken out his white Tommy Hilfiger knit shirt for the occasion.

Heineken firmly in hand, Hutch seemed determined to bring the Two Andreas along with us. Later that night I found myself, Andrea-less, admiring Hutch's tenacity, for he conceded defeat in the endeavor far later than I did.

When Hutch and I finally left Rock Island - alone - at about 3 a.m., the party was waning but by no means over. It was a festive place. The bartenders swung the light fixtures, which were suspended from chains, in wide arcs around the ceiling to create odd visual effects. A few of the young Canadian bucks, meanwhile, had grown spirited with their liquor (pun intended) and taken to aggressive slam-dancing out on the main floor. Five or six young Canadians of either gender would gather round, thrusting two-foot-long straws into pitchers of some yellowish mixed drinks, which they downed with surprising speed in one great communal gulp. A white male Canadian-Junior-Team member with an enormous Afro (yes, really) had so ingratiated himself with Layla and Pam (yes, the same) that he was busy writing down their phone numbers and bumming Marlboros (yes, the cigarettes) from Layla. Sneaky little bugger.

Hutch and I walked back along the pier to solid ground and reality. Along the way, we passed the race site, and I spotted a torn ITU banner flapping on a traffic barrier. I told Hutch that we should, "try to get a good banner without looking as though we were trying to get a good banner" - in case any police were lurking - and we grabbed a nice souvenir from near the finish line. I rolled up the ten-foot-long banner and tucked it under my arm. At least we wouldn't go home completely empty-handed.

18 September 2001, On the Train Back to Rimini from Milano, Italy

I got a bit lost, alone, in Milano today. I speak no Italian, have no one with me - Dennis having planned to be my wing man - and I generally have to figure out some new situations on the fly. (Note: If this sounds as though it should have been fun, you never met the 21-year old version of this author.)

Jeff and Holly were driving to Zofingen, Switzerland, today. On their way, they dropped me off on the outskirts of Milano at a commuter rail station, which was populated solely by rusty wire sculptures of people waiting for trains. A train came just as we were trying to figure out how one paid for a ride, and I had to board so quickly I hadn't the time to say a proper goodbye. Jeff and Holly had been very good to me. Jeff lent me a wristwatch last night, after I realized that mine had drowned in the rain during the race on Sunday. I'd never make trains without a watch.

Jeff and I also went running along the bike course early this morning. The town of Rimini returned to normal in a hurry. Most of the national teams have already left.

The woman across the train's aisle from me just asked, in Italian, if anyone had a pen. I offered her mine after she'd already been handed one and I could guess what she'd said - though I'd been writing with one right in front of her the whole time. I wish I spoke Italian and understood this country better. Right now I drift by on about four words: grazie, prego, si, and no.

The train has just begun rolling, about five minutes behind schedule (thanks, Jeff's watch). I hope I can read the station signs well enough. I'd rather not end up in some remote corner of this peninsula in the middle of the night with no good way home.

Thinking positively, Milano really took my breath away. The weather finally broke, and I found plenty to interest me, though I knew about the city only what I'd quickly skimmed from a greatly condensed tourist's guide to Italy.

I stopped in at one modern art gallery, which was displaying several pieces that looked pretty but were completely meaningless to me and my inability to read the explanation labels. One work was an oil-on-wood painting. I found it particularly interesting, perhaps because I could make out what it was: a grand piano and bench on a stage. I'm sure its creator had some deeper significance for it that was lost on uncultured little me.

(It's getting dark outside, I really hope this is the right train.)

I also saw the Duomo Cathedral at the center of the hub-and-spoke layout of Milano. I read somewhere in the travel book that it is the third largest church in the world, though I can't image which two might be bigger. I thought back to an Art History course as I gazed at the Gothic-style pointed arches and stained glass. (Note: Many thanks to Prof. Lord back at Penn State.) The Catholic faithful sat praying silently as heathen tourists like me ambled through. I thought more about the human stoneworkers who put the place up than the divine being they meant to worship.

Perhaps I'm too much a product of a modern, secular place and time. I can't comprehend the kind of faith in God that would make people erect such beautiful buildings as the Duomo. I also can't comprehend a perverted version of faith in God, which very recently made another group of people want to level such heavily populated buildings as the World Trade Center.

21 September 2001, On the Way Home

I had to take the 11:20 a.m. train from Rimini to Roma on the 19th. It took me forever to check out of the Hotel Villa Lalla, which had served as a lovely home away from home (thank you, Holly, for finding it). I wanted to pay by credit card at the front desk, but the hotel's card reader wouldn't pick up the worn-out magnetic strip on my MasterCard. I went to the downtown ATM and took out 400,000 lire, the last of the cash in my bank account, to cover the bill and, I hoped, food and lodging in Roma that night.

At the Rimini train station, the chain-smoking ticket agents got my temperamental credit card to work, which saved me some much-needed cash. On the platform, I struck up a conversation with some members of Team South Africa and the team doctor for the Canadians. They were also preparing to leave Rimini for good, though none were going through Rome with me.

The Canadian team doctor told me that one of their juniors, who had started in the same wave I had, had gone borderline hypothermic during the race. A hypothermic Canadian, I would guess, is not to be taken lightly as a sign of the conditions. I suppose I was lucky, yet again, and I felt a little less awful about my finish.

The doctor, his wife, and I boarded the train for Bologna, where they would be staying and I would change trains. Crowding on the train forced us to stand in the end of the car, near the WC. I leaned against my bike case for an hour and watched people make their way up and down the length of the train. The end of the car smelled of a sickly sweet combination of tarry, stale cigarette smoke and toilet deodorizer from the lavatory. (This is the less romantic, but no less important side of international racing.)

While waiting on a departure platform in Bologna, I met a lovely young woman from Calcutta, India, who was in Italy on a fashion-design internship. She approached me and asked, in English, if I knew which train was due there. She claimed that she had guessed from my "features" that I was an American, though I'd wager her "features" had something to do with my baseball cap, loose-fitting jeans and Teva sandals - all of which made me look about as un-Italian as humanly possible.

After some gesturing, coupled at times with a mix of broken English and downright pulverized Italian, we got an assurance from an avuncular conductor that we were indeed on the correct platform. The train arrived as the Indian woman wound up a lengthy complaint about the Italian rail system. She and I went to separate cars.

For the first time since I'd arrived in Italy, I fit the bike case in the luggage compartment at the end of one of the rail cars as we left Bologna. I had to stand the case on end and wrap the pull-strap several times around the rack above, but, for once, I didn't have to either clutch the thing or constantly maneuver it out of the way so that other people could use the bathroom.

I took a seat across the aisle from an Australian woman who had been rock climbing in the Alps. She complained about how expensive it was to stay in European cities as opposed to out in "the bush," but she was going to visit Roma and Paris before her 21-hour flight home. I wished her luck on that last part.

The Australian woman and I talked for almost an hour, mostly about what was happening in the United States and what each of us had been able to glean from the Italian newspaper she'd bought. Working together, we got about half to two-thirds of what we read, and I helped out by supplying job-titles for the names of American officials mentioned in the article. We also talked about the various problems that went along with our respective governments. Occasionally, I stuffed handfuls of Honey-Nut Cheerios into my mouth, as a toddler would, because I was running low on money for travel food.

The train arrived fifteen minutes late in Firenze and ten minutes behind schedule in Roma. (Maybe the woman from Calcutta had good reason to complain.) Once outside the Termini Station, I spent an hour and a half cursing every one of the thousands of builders over thousands of years who had constructed Roman streets. My bike box felt progressively heavier over each uneven cobblestone curb as I searched for a hotel with room at the inn.

September being a busy tourist season in Roma, I tried five different places, most of which had reception desks several floors above street level and narrow elevators. A middle-aged man, while helping me to load my bike onto one tiny lift, tried to grab my wallet. Luckily, I always travel with my wallet in a thin front pocket, so I could feel his hand reaching in time to swat it away and close the elevator door between us. He disappeared as quickly as he had appeared, but I kept my wallet.

Finally, I found a room at the Hotel Sweet Home. (It was a tourist hotel, and the name was actually in English. I wondered later if it would have been as tacky if translated into Italian.) I heaved the ponderous bike case up the three and a half flights of stairs to the "first" floor and locked it in my room.

I made it to Saint Peter's Basilica, via the metro, five minutes before it closed for evening. The Vatican Museum, which I'd hoped to see, was already locked. I bought some small gifts with some of the little cash I had left. I was glad I'd paid for my hotel room in advance, because I discovered that my bank account was empty at an ATM just outside the Vatican. (There were no money changers in the temple, of course.)

By the time I reached the ancient Forum and the Colosseum, also via the metro, night had fallen. The Forum was closed for the evening, but it was awash in the glow of many giant spotlights. I circled it from every approach in hopes that: a.) a gate had been left open, and b.) my photos would turn out. Neither hope panned out.

Early the next morning, I woke the hotel manager once to go running and a second time to check out. I walked to Termini Station a little before 5 a.m. with cash totaling exactly 3,000 lire and eleven U.S. dollars in my wallet. The man at the ticket counter couldn't get my credit card to read, and the ticket out to the airport cost 17,000 lire. He pointed me out of line and toward the currency exchange counter. My eleven dollars should have been almost 25,000 lire with the exchange rate at the time. The change counter was, however, closed at that hour of the morning.

I couldn't just wait there. I needed the first train, which was set to leave in about twelve minutes, if I was going to make it to the airport on time. I ran up to every Italian I saw, asking as best I could if they would take my ten-dollar bill in exchange for just enough lire to cover the train ticket. I finally found one young man willing to make the exchange that made him a few dollars the richer. Then I had to get back in line at the ticket counter.

When I finally got my ticket, I sprinted down the terra-cotta floor of the station full bore, with the wheels of the bike box clicking over each tile. The platform for the trains to the airport was, of course, the farthest away from the ticket counter in an enormous train station. Breathing heavily and sweating, I threw the bike box onto the train and climbed aboard. The car I chose happened to be nearly full of soldiers from the Italian army, in full duty uniforms and lugging duffel bags. They gave me some strange, though not threatening, looks as I stood the box up beside me at the end of the car.

At the airport I found a hundred-yard-long line to the check-in counter. When I finally reached the desk, they told me that the bike box was too big, so I should wheel it around to the side. Around to the side, they told me, with much head-shaking, that the box was still too big for the conveyor belt. They led me halfway down the terminal and wedged my bike box in among a pile of Italian army duffel bags on a service elevator. I didn't much care where it went at that point.

On the plane I found myself next to a young woman from Mexico City who was studying art in Firenze (apparently rather a common situation). She spoke fluent English, and we talked through the flight about Italy, the awful in-flight movies, and the pre-flight "safety lecture." I told her how odd it seemed that the inflatable rafts and and life vests in the pictures all had the Continental Airlines logo on them. One would think they'd prefer not to see their name attached to something only meant to be deployed in and accident, but the airlines have never been accused of being slaves to good sense.

Epilogue

When the plane touched down in Newark, we passengers lined up for the customs inspection. I looked up at the wall, which was decorated using 15-foot-high tapestry/banners with giant photos of New York landmarks. They hadn't taken down the picture of the Twin Towers. I could see other people also discovering that banner and turning away, sometimes in tears.

I looked out the window at the cool rain and thought back to the race. Many of the Americans, including me, had used black markers to draw narrow bands around our upper arms as a sign of mourning. Athletes from other nations followed suit, as a sign of respect and solidarity. I'm saddened and confused at how we as a country abused, squandered, and lost that respect.

In fact, those couple weeks in September 2001 left me confused or saddened about a lot. Three years later, I'm still fighting some of the big questions that that time raised about meaning in life and whether God exists. I think, now and again, about a bitter Scottish poet named Robert Burns and what he said about the best-laid schemes of mice and men.

So many lives were lost in such a short time, and so many more have since been lost in their names. Destruction came from the clear blue sky, and a storm got me to my destination on time. I'm still profoundly confused about much of that trip, including the very end of it.

I stayed with the older of my two sisters, near Philadelphia, for a day after I arrived in Newark. I was still sorting things out when she saw me off on a bus to State College. On that bus ride, our driver was a man named T.J. Johnson, who was a born-again Christian and pretty outspoken about it. T.J. gave a bus filled largely with college students a fiery sermon for most of the ride.

About 13 miles from State College, the bus broke down. T.J. climbed out, worked at the back of the bus for a few minutes, and returned to the driver's seat. He had fixed the machine. The bus started right up, and we passengers clapped politely for him.

In response, T.J. picked up his PA-microphone and said, with great seriousness, "It wasn't me that fixed the bus; it was the Lord, working through me."

The bus was quiet for a moment. Then from somewhere in the back, a voice said, mockingly, "If the Lord was so good to us, how come the bus broke down in the first place?"

I wish someone could answer that question.

###

by Sparky Ion, December 2004