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The day I announced I was taking a job at The Albuquerque Tribune 10 1/2 years ago, a boss and friend told me, "Phill, I don't know how wise that is. They don't have much time left."

I felt a shudder.

And then I shrugged.

We operate like that here at The Trib: Insecure in the knowledge that declining circulation trends could kill us, yet determined to stay alive with guts and grit and spit, and yeah, polish.

Doing journalism here is a little like being the title character in "The Bourne Identity." We endured the smash-ups and the shots that come from a down-on-its-heels newspaper industry. Yet we kept finding a way to make journalism, not merely survival, Job No. 1.

I mean, this newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize 13 years ago. A Pulitzer! We produced a 20-part series on New Mexico children five years ago that nearly killed us — or had us kill one another — that won the newspaper a National Journalism Award in 2003. Better yet, it led to state officials actually taking kids' issues more seriously.

I don't name-drop those stories to tell you that The Trib was infallible or unassailable, only to report that a newspaper with less ambition, less interest in the community, less élan, would never have attempted such things.

As you may know by now, I told our staff on Tuesday morning that these kinds of efforts likely would end.

The Trib's parent company, E.W. Scripps, has put us up for sale. If no buyer is found, we'll close.

It was the hardest thing I've ever said to our staff, a group of 45 people I love with all my heart (and yes, at times, wanted to strangle with both my hands). If I wrote in any detail about their dedication, their passion, their insistence on quality, this column would end right here, because my tears would not allow me to continue.

The news hit hard, of course. Not because we didn't know this was a possibility; speculation about The Trib's demise had been rampant since, oh, the early 1990s. I think the hurt came from the realization that The Trib — a place where the best idea and best effort generally win, regardless of what the "safe" play is — wouldn't be able to emerge from the fire, Bourne-like, just one more time.

Damn.

People ask me how likely it is The Trib will be sold. Frankly, I have no idea, mostly because it's hard to put a dollar amount on good journalists and great journalism. I know this: Daddy Warbucks would be getting his money's worth with the people here.

And if it's not to be . . . well, we can accept that. Not easily, of course. I toss and turn at night wondering if I would have been able to lead us to a better conclusion if I'd been smarter, better, tougher. Those what-ifs may haunt me for a very long time.

But I can say goodbye to our staff and our community knowing the people who worked at The Trib since the 1920s did the best job they could. The pride that comes with my knowledge makes my heart beat just a touch faster.

I've sat at my computer terminal for the past 10 minutes trying to figure out how I would end this column. There are no tears at the moment, just a pause in the heartache, a lull in the fear about the future.

All I can do is look outside my office window and tell you what I see.

Jan Jonas is pumping stories onto our Web site. Erik Siemers is chatting and talking, figuring out which stories he's going to write next. Ollie Reed and Jim Montalbano are hatching a plan. Our copy editors are eating something they shouldn't. Sports is sports — getting stuff ready to go for the first weekend of football.

It's another day in the life of a newsroom. But not just any newsroom. A great newsroom.

Damn. I'm gonna miss it.