Day 40: News to me

Every time I hear someone say the newspaper industry is on life support and not expected to survive, I swear I can hear my bones creak.

I spent a long time, maybe too long, working for a newspaper and have, for far longer, been a newspaper reader. I credit my parents for that. Two dailies -- the local paper and the Cleveland Plain Dealer -- were delivered to our home when I was a kid. I took pride in how well I did on the weekly current events quiz that ran in my local paper.

And like many people of a certain age, I cannot imagine mornings without a newspaper in my hands. I've tried reading the morning news online, taking care not to drip milk from my cereal bowl on the keyboard, but it's just not the same.

Geez, I sound like an old coot. But even some younger "coots" I know agree that it would be difficult to do without a daily paper.

This weekend, after a long stretch in the same building, the newspaper where I worked for more than 30 years is moving. The building's been sold, and the paper will lease space in a building a few miles from its current site. I'm one of several people who were let go this year in yet another attempt to keep the paper afloat.

Sad as I am to no longer be a part of it, I wish the paper well. I don't like change -- and I would hate to lose something that's as much a part of my morning as that bowl of cereal.