Ending a 35-year relationship is hard, even when the other party has no feelings to hurt.

I’ve always been a fan of print journalism. As a boy, I read The Lincoln Journal, a weekly publication in my hometown of Lincolnton, Georgia. A town of 1,000 people can produce only so much news, but the paper covered the football games and whatever the county commissioners were up to. There was often a list of police reports or delinquent taxes, along with pictures of big fish from the Clark Hill Reservoir, deer killed by 10-year-olds, and the first wild turkey of every season.

We also took the Augusta Chronicle to keep up with news on a state, national, and world level. It came every day and I read it just as often.

While making my way through life, I subscribed to the Hogansville Herald while serving a church in Hogansville, Georgia, and even wrote a weekly devotional column for it. When I came to North Carolina for seminary and served a church in Oxford, I signed up for the Oxford Ledger.

In Boone for four years, I faithfully took the Watauga Democrat. When I moved to the Apex/Cary area in 1988, I happily subscribed to the Raleigh News & Observer, even though someone told me its editorial board was – gasp – liberal.

The N&O came every day, and I read it every day. I found comfort in the morning ritual of reading the paper, then working the crossword and Jumble puzzles to get my brain in gear. I did the Cryptoquote until they cut it, presumably to save money.

The relationship was a happy one for many years, but life has been hard for print journalism. I was editor of North Carolina’s inaptly named Biblical Recorder for nine years, and I learned how difficult it can be to attract and keep subscribers while the cost of printing and postage continues to rise.

That’s one of the reasons I remained so faithful to the N&O, I suppose, even when the owners began to downsize both the staff and the size of the paper. I didn’t mind fewer pages, so long as what remained was responsibly reported and reasonably up to date.

With growing pressure from digital news sources, however, both the newspaper and its iconic building were sold. It’s now a part of the