That summer - “The Summer of Lis,” as Lainey used to tease me - came to an end the second Tuesday of September. The towers fell at 8:30 in the morning. I raced my Jeep down Lake Shore Drive and into downtown, barely remembering where I parked it, and spent the next 17 hours inside the Tribune, acutely aware that we were in one of Chicago's highest-profile buildings, next to the Sears and the Hancock. By 1 a.m. we were exhausted, still scared, drained and burned out from looking at computer screens and yelling at each other, all while keeping one eye on the televisions and the other on our computer screens. Gordon, Lainey and few coworkers and I went out onto Michigan Avenue and walked down the empty street to the river, walking side-by-side like a posse in an old Western movie. The city was ex...

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