At 6:30 a.m. on September 11, 2001 (“9/11”), I was just walking into my room at the Main Street Inn (now the Bridger Inn) in downtown Las Vegas after an all-nighter playing and scouting. I turned on the TV and saw the fire at the World Trade Center, which had been hit by a small plane, they said. I grew up in sight of the towers (at least on a clear day from the cemetery on top of the hill), so it was surreal seeing them collapse. Then all domestic flights were grounded, and I found myself locked down in Vegas.
Today’s youth, and some of us old-timers, have forgotten who the luckiest person on earth was that day. Lost in the shuffle of 9/11 was one U.S. Representative Gary Condit. At the time, he was dominating the headlines after the May-2001 disappearance of Chandra Levy, an intern with whom he had had an affair. The public (read “I”) believed he had a role in her disappearance, or at a minimum was not sharing all of his information with investigators. Then 9/11 happened and the Condit Scandal evaporated, just like that. When Levy’s body was found in 2002, it was barely a story.
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