I had probably gotten an hour or two’s work in when it was announced that by order of Gov. Mitt Romney, all state schools would be shutting down that day.

The students who couldn’t go home (FSC has a large contingency of students from Japan and several Spanish-speaking countries) were ordered to leave their dorms and spend the night in the library. FSC is about the size of a city block. The tallest building is 11 stories high. The longest, and most easily visible by air, is the library. I suggested to Nancy that they paint a Bull’s Eye on the rooftop. She laughed, distractedly; she worried more about her tenure review than anything else.

Later, reviewing Nancy’s papers from my iMac, I would stop and look at the screen, transfixed by the horrifying images on auto-repeat. It was the unavoidable train wreck, but I knew I had to see it or else I would not have believed.