Particularly in a culture that thinks of "longevity" as the 12th season of "The Bachelor."

So 125 years for a newspaper?

That's pretty good.

Not many things that were here in 1883 are still around and kicking.

OK, the Rolling Stones, perhaps and the Connecticut Post.

Of course the Connecticut Post has had a few prior incarnations since its start in 1883. We are proud of the fact that we are still here.

And, the Connecticut Post has a few incarnations to go. Twenty-five years from now, we'll look back and recognize this as the time in which the printed edition of this and other newspapers — affectionately referred to as the "dead wood" edition, after the zillion trees that have expired in service of newspaper journalism — was giving way to the digital edition, an incarnation that exists on the display screens of computers, cellphones and a host of electronic devices, many of which have not yet been designed or conceived.

No ink. No trucks. No newsprint. Just backlit letters, words and glyphs on the blue screens of the future.

But fear not. Someone will write an introduction for the 150th anniversary presentation.

If things are so uncertain in the newspaper game in 2008, how can one be confident of the future?

It's elementary. As long as mankind is curious, people will seek information. And people will want stories and pictures.

It's hard to cut these days through the blather of bloggers, the jabber of radio and television talkers, the

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check-out counter magazines with the latest "news" of a Britney meltdown.

But at some point, thinking people look for good information, information that was collected, sifted, vetted, edited, shaped, put into focus and presented by people who, with varying degrees of success, do it professionally and try to keep their opinion — no matter how studied or strident — out of it.

So, the good news is that the Connecticut Post is likely to be here for many incarnations to come.

The good news for those of us who toil in this field — and those who hope to — is that there will always be a need for the people whose passion is to collect, sift, vet, edit, shape, put into focus and present information without the urge to ram it full of their own opinion.

So we hope you enjoy the reminiscences, reports, reflections and images we have for you here.

Passionate, honest people have collected, sifted, vetted, edited, shaped, focused and presented it, to the best of their abilities, for you.

Michael J. Daly is managing editor of the Connecticut Post.