WE’RE HERE: We remember the events of Sept. 11,
2001, like it was yesterday. No doubt, you do, too. As the events
were still unfolding that day, there was some anxiety about what
the future would bring for the country, and not the future as in
five years hence but in the next 24 hours.

We’re happy to report we are still here – although the
world is a much different place.

Sept. 11, 2001, is one of those dates that undoubtedly will
forever be a “date of infamy” as are such historic dates as the
attack on Pearl Harbor, end of World War II in Europe and Japan,
the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

All dates in which the world turned on a dime.

COMING SOON: Speaking of dates, did you know
that next Monday is Constitution Day? It is a federally mandated
day of study of the U.S. Constitution.

As part of that effort, The Era will run a series of stories,
“Thomas Paine: American Patriot.”

Each Monday for eight weeks we will offer a new chapter
in this saga about this “uncommon patriot” who penned, “Common
Sense,” the 1776 equivalent of a best seller.

The serial, a joint effort of the Pennsylvania Newspaper
Foundation and the Pennsylvania Newspapers In Education Committee,
is an adaptation of a work by Mae Kramer Silver

The serial will tell how Paine’s writing influenced the
Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the entire
Constitution.

Many teachers in our circulation area will be using this series
in their classrooms through the NIE program.

We hope our readers, too, read the serial as a way to renew
their appreciation of our most unique form of government.

Constitution Day actually commemorates the Sept. 17 signing of
the Constitution.

Congress passed legislation in 2004 that requires educational
institutions receiving federal funding to hold an educational
program pertaining to the United States Constitution on Sept. 17 of
each year. The Constitution is 220 years old this year.

Thomas Paine – as readers may remember from their high school
history classes – was an Englishman who arrived in Philadelphia on
Nov. 30, 1774.

Some 120,000 copies of his “Common Sense,” which came
off the small printing press of American patriot Benjamin Franklin,
were printed, sold, borrowed or traded.

We’re anxious to learn (re-learn) more about this story, and
hope you are, too.