Just about every weekday afternoon for the past 27 years, Dave Menicucci has come home — hopping off his bicycle if he's chosen to ride to work that day — and picked up a familiar bundle of newsprint before heading in the door.

"It's just a habit," says the 57-year-old engineer and researcher at Sandia National Laboratories. "I pull in the driveway and look to see if The Trib is there. It's almost a ritualistic thing."

With The Tribune's closure looming, Menicucci, who will retire this month, wondered which routine might end first — his regular workday, or his daily dose of the local paper he has been reading almost 40 years.

"I've always liked The Trib," says Menicucci, who first read the paper — his mother's subscription — as a teenager. "It's more of a hometown newspaper. It captures the local flavor, the way we are in Albuquerque."

Of course, there were the odd days during the past three decades when the driveway was empty.

"If it wasn't there, I'd be irritated," he said. "And I could always tell if we had a new carrier, because it would be in a different place."

Sad to say, more than once that place was the freshly watered lawn. That didn't mean The Tribune got thrown out, however. It just meant Menicucci would have to spread the pages out to dry on the formica-topped table in the kitchen before the ritual would begin.

And the ritual goes something like this:

Menicucci picks up the paper and heads inside. First he looks at the front page. (Lately, he's been following the city's red-light controversy, a "growing controversy in the community The Tribune has been very reliably reporting from the beginning.")

An avid sports fan, the sports page is next, particularly if his favorite writer, Richard Stevens, has an analytical piece. He's quick to reminisce about Stevens' coverage of the Lobogate scandal at the University of New Mexico in the late '70s.

The guest essays in the op-ed section are something Menicucci — who has done some writing of his own for the Los Alamos Monitor and both Albuquerque papers — is drawn to as well.

"Almost all the people are local, and these are intelligent perspectives," he says.

When his wife, Barbara, a longtime school teacher, gets home, it's her turn to read the paper — relaxing on the living room La-Z-Boy recliner while her husband maybe puts the last touches on a rabbit he's hunted, cleaned and then simmered for hours in a garlic-laden Italian red sauce for dinner.

When E.W. Scripps, The Tribune's parent company, announced Aug. 28 the paper was for sale and would close if no buyer was found, Menicucci read about it . . . in The Trib.

"Just groaned," he says, recalling his reaction. "I'm a business person, and I believe in competition. Wherever it's eliminated, I groan."

But it's more than that. Menicucci is one of a dying breed — an avid reader who has three newspaper subscriptions and stacks of magazine articles and books around his Albuquerque Country Club-area home. Although he is Internet savvy, he still enjoys the physical act of holding a paper in his hands and reading it "where you want and when you want."

Besides, if The Trib is headed to the graveyard, what does it say about the decline in reading in general?

"That worries me from a societal point of view," he says. "A democracy demands informed people. It takes work to understand the issues and find the truth for your family, your community, your society. I'm worried people aren't doing that as much."

He recalls a recent trip to Baillo's electronics store as a "frenzy" and laments the "entertainment fixation" that seems to be a mark of many peoples' interests today. Yet when a visitor points to the new, flat-screen, high-definition TV in the living room, he admits a little sheepishly it makes his sports watching a great pleasure.

"I don't want to be a Luddite," he says. "We just got that, and I love it."

But asked if he'd rather give up the screen or the Wall Street Journal — his favorite daily newspaper — he pauses not a moment.

"If that doesn't come, I'm angry," he says. "I'd rather give up TV."

But he admits he's reluctant to give up any of his regular reading sources, including The Trib.

"If it does go, I hope there will be something to take its place," Menicucci says. "The Trib provided another perspective, and it was very much appreciated."

He catches himself using the past tense and makes a correction.

Still, he's braced for the day he finds the driveway empty — and the carrier isn't at fault.

"Sad," he says of how he will feel if and when that day comes. "I'll probably call and get a recording that says it's no longer publishing, and that will be disheartening.

"That's the word, disheartening," he sighs. "Clearly, it's something we've been doing for a long time and then . . . it's gone."