Remembering September 11th, 2001

Jeff Dingle - Villanova University

September 11th, 2001 started out as one of those crisp late summer, pre-autumn days.  It was sunny and crisp with little humidity in the air.  The day was almost perfect until a little after 9 am in New York City.  I was working at my regular gig calling on former owner of WISL 1480/95.3 Mick Haggerty about the upcoming Mount Carmel-Southern Columbia game.  Haggerty informed me that plans flew into the both towers of the World Trade Center.  Not being near a television or radio, I did not comprehend that these were jet liners.  Life as we know in the US, did change forever.  


Note:  The games did go on Friday, September 14th.

After the days and weeks settled down, I found at that anyone I had a friendship with from Villanova University who worked in NYC did survive.    Months later I did get to read the story of Villanova football player Jeff Dingle.  In my years at Villanova (1984-1988),  Villanova was trying to resurrect a football program that went through 3-year hiatus in the early 80's.  Jeff Dingle was running with exceptional ability and contagious smile that you would see around campus.  I was later to find out the Jeff basically became the stay-at-home dad while his wife was completing her studies to be a practicing pediatrician.  

On that Tuesday, September 11th, Dingle was reentering the workforce at a new job and was at a company breakfast at the Windows of the World Restaurant.  I found this online about Jeff while at Villanova, he had a great day on September 10th, 1988.

The story of Jeff Dingle has taught me try not to take things for granted and try to get the most out of life that we can. 

Since 9/11 our nation has held great regard for all of military which had taken a back seat since the end of the Vietnam War.  We still have men and women who may have been under 10 years old on 9/11 still volunteering to serve.  Hopefully, this will be a positive as our nation goes forward.

On the other hand, our political leadership on both sides of the aisle have adopted a "scorched earth" policy of the other side bordering on childish.  

Like the ordinary citizens who stepped out of September 10th and became heroes on September 11th, 2001, we are seeing that same spirit displayed as the worse flood in nearly 40 years comes to visit this September.