9/11 made a tiny Pennsylvania town world famous. 20 years later, it feels left out.

On my third afternoon in Shanksville, I walk up the smooth concrete path to Mrs. P—‘s house. Through the front window I see an elderly woman in the living room, sitting by a lamp. I ring the bell and wait. I ring again. The house is silent. As I walk back to the street, I see the living room shades drawn shut. The lamp is off.

How many times can a person give and give and receive nothing in return?

“Everybody was proud that we had been part of something good,” says Elliott Ansell, 70, who lives a mile up the road from Mrs. P—. “It changes because they get tired of putting up with the outsiders. The outsiders, they come in, and they ‘Ooh’ and ‘Aahh.’ They make a big to-do, and then they leave. And they really never cared about us.”

I called Terry Shaffer. He didn’t pick up, either. In New York City and Washington, D.C., journalists covering the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon called the mayor’s office, the governor’s office, the Department of Defense, the FBI, the White House. Each bureaucracy had staffs of people paid to speak with the press. In Shanksville, everybody called Terry Shaffer. As Shanksville’s fire chief on 9/11, he was the only person in town who knew what was happening at the crash site and was allowed to talk about it. Those early stories served as a road map for the next 20 years, pointing future waves of journalists to Shaffer’s door.

I ring the bell and wait. Shaffer opens the door. He says nothing. My arrival annoys him, but it does not surprise him. This is the first full sentence he says: “I think you’ll find a good many of the town people just want to get on with their lives.”