I may have been the only person in the entire metropolitan area who missed the whole thing when it was happening. I was driving down to Camden to cover jury selection for the rabbi murder trial, and when I got out of range of WFUV, I turned on the CD player and listened to music for the rest of the ride. One of the songs I listened to was Shawn Colvin's "Another Plane Went Down," which gave me a weird feeling. But then that song always gave me a weird feeling. Did I have some sixth sense somewhere that all the molecules in the universe had cataclysmically rearranged themselves? I like to think I did. But at the time, I dismissed all my misgivings as nervousness about getting to Camden and finding the courthouse.
I got to Camden and parked; court was in session; jury selection was going on. I took notes assiduously and was blissfully unaware that the whole world had turned upside down. Then, about 11, the judge asked the lawyers whether they wanted to go ahead in light of the day's news and the thousands of people who'd likely died.