You know some things are inevitable, but when it happens, well … you’re still stunned.

I ventured to Amarillo this week to see some friends and take care of a little personal business. Then it hit me like a punch in the puss. The newspaper where I worked for 18-plus years no longer exists. The Amarillo Globe-News, whose owner once committed to serving the community for as long as he walked this Earth, has vanished. It now operates — kinda/sorta — out of Lubbock.

My first reaction? Wow, man!

The newspaper once was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service in 1961 for exposing public corruption in government. The public service award is the highest honor given to print journalists. Well, gang, the newspaper didn’t maintain that level of admiration. It was a solid paper when I joined it in January 1995 and we did good work there. Then the shit hit the fan. The Internet took over. The group to which the G-N belonged began bleeding money. Advertisers pulled out. Circulation plummeted. Staff members were sent packing.

The newspaper group that bought the paper in 1972 surrendered to the inexorable tide of change and sold the entire group for next to nothing.

Now it’s gone.

I lament the demise of a once-grand institution. No, it’s worse than that. I feel at times — like right now — like crying.