When the planes hit, I was in Chicago on assignment for Newsday. I watched the towers crumble on a hotel television. The ensuing hours and days passed by in a ghastly haze.

After making sure everyone at home was OK, I finished up my work as best I could. Then, with the nation's airspace shut down, I drove my rental car across the Midwest, joined by thousands of others driving rental cars back to their homes. My only company was the car radio with its angst-ridden soundtrack of fear, confusion and conspiracy theories. I remember the highway signs warning drivers to stay away from New York, the awful sight of that smoke while crossing the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the hellscape of rubble we later witnessed in person, and the poignant flyers all over lower Manhattan desperately seeking information about loved ones who were missing.

Most of us who lived through that day have our memories. We tuck them away, however deeply. And every so often they emerge,........

© Newsday