Saturday, February 23, 2008

Phill Casaus: Don't cry for us, Albuquerque; it was worth it    

The Tribune Staff at left

Some take photographs, write headlines or design pages. Some conveyed stories about your community, and others made sure the job could be done and done well. This was the Albuquerque Tribune staff.  These illustrations were from the final issue on February 23, 2008.

Key to faces of the Tribune

1. Joel Gay 2. Lillian J. Kelly 3. Mary-Ann McBride 4. Phil Parker 5. Ali Patterson 6. Don Renfroe 7. James Staley 8. Erik Siemers 9. Stephanie Garcia-Krenrich 10. Bill Slakey 11. Maggie Shepard 12. Jim Montalbano 13. Willie Jefferson Jr. 14. Michael Amedeo 15. Rick Hindley 16. Wendi Wilkerson 17. Jack Ehn 18. Jeff Alexander 19. Ollie Reed Jr. 20. Sue Vorenberg 21. Iliana Limón 22. Madelon Brown 23. Mike Garcia 24. Larry Spohn 25. Mark Holm 26. Barbara Page 27. Charles Googe 28. Tamara N. Shope 29. Erin Fredrichs 30. Craig Fritz 31. Steven St. John 32. Michael Gisick 33. Joline Gutierrez Krueger 34. Susie Gran 35. Paul Maldonado Jr. 36. Kate Nash 37. John Whitmore 38. Carrie Seidman 39. Phill Casaus 40. Louise Kutz 41. Kathy Korte 42. Karl Kaplan 43. Natalie Ramirez 44. Mike Gallegos 45. Charlotte Hill Cobb 46. Richard Stevens 47. Jan Jonas 48. James "Woody" Brosnon

By Phill Casaus  

Well, it's closing time, and before we turn out the lights and walk out of your life forever, I just wanted to say thanks, Albuquerque.

Helluva run, huh?

If you don't mind, I'd like it to end this way, my friend: With a handshake and a laugh and a hug; an abrazo that is more about the good than the sad.

The sad, we've already done in this office, anyway; no need to say more. In the past six months, we at The Trib cried about this day almost as hard as we worked to keep it from happening in the first place.

Believe me, every tear stung, particularly as the newspaper lurched between closure and sale and closure again. I don't know who's to blame anymore, but the last several months weren't fair, weren't right. Not for a staff who worked their guts out C and made the guy in this chair look a lot smarter than he is.

But enough of that. Today, let's just raise a glass C or raise a voice C to the good times.

I want to think of The Trib, even in its final edition, as a force for what is righteous in the community it serves. The community it loves. I hope you'll agree that, for 86 years, it lived up to our credo, one every journalist should memorize: "Give light and people will find their way."

If nothing else, I hope you'll remember The Trib as the best kind of neighbor and friend C one who could be depended upon when the stakes were highest and the needs greatest.

I've looked through our history together, and I'm struck by the way we intersected C unlikely upstarts in a harsh, sometimes unforgiving frontier. When The Trib arrived on the scene, first as Magee's Independent in 1922, ponies were more common than cars on Albuquerque's dirt streets. Now, our souped-up autos trudge along, at pony pace, along the city's byways.

I look through the microfiche, and I'm amazed how we grew, through wars and peacetime, through economic booms and a Depression and a few recessions. We wore fedoras and ducktails and beehives and, God help us, even mullets. We were quite a sight.

I laugh as I remember the characters we've seen and joys we found. In what other city could you find something like "Chevy on a Stick"? A one-man, falsetto-voiced promoter like the late Frank Crosby? A coach like Albuquerque High's Jim Hulsman or Highland's Bill Gentry? Politicians as tough and resilient as Clyde Tingley, Dennis Chavez, Pete Domenici and Bruce King? A basketball court like The Pit? A Sandia Peak and a bosque and a balloon fiesta?

For every one of your personalities, The Trib had a few of its own. Editors like Magee and Carmack and Baldwin and Gallagher. Reporters like Salazar and Steuver and Archuleta and Reed and Gutierrez Krueger and Stevens and Nelson.

On both sides, we've been blessed, Albuquerque.

I'm thinking, too, about how we sometimes agreed to disagree. And sometimes, we did it loudly C in the paper, on the phone, at the financial bottom line. But every fight taught us something, and hopefully, made both of us better.

I know this friendship, like all friendships, was altered over time C and I know those transformations might have led us to this day.

Some people say Albuquerque changed too much to keep two newspapers alive, and The Trib changed too little to be the one that survived.

I doubt I'll ever really know the answer for certain, certainly not today. But I do believe we C city and newspaper C never lost our affinity for one another. The Trib was Albuquerque, and Albuquerque was The Trib. I'll believe that forever.

I'll believe this, too: We'll miss being part of your life, mostly because it's so interesting. So distinct. So full of unique stories and possibilities that you can't find in Tucson or Tuscaloosa, or New York or L.A., either.

I hope you never lose sight of that, Albuquerque; never lose the personality that makes you so special C and so much fun to be around.

So, as we go our separate ways, please know that we're grateful for the time we've had together.

You made it all worthwhile.

Casaus, an Albuquerque native, was editor of The Trib for 1,746 days.