This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

OK, I'm going to answer a question people won't stop asking me. I've grown weary of answering it one at a time, so I'll do it here and now for everyone.

Pay attention, because this is all I'm going to say about my presumed future as a homeless hack, a gaunt wreck of a man wandering downtown streets subsisting on cigarette butts and dementia.

Here's the question: "So, Kirby (or some expletive, including Mormonized versions), what are you going to do when the church finally squeezes the life out of the Trib for good?"

This, of course, refers to the ongoing struggle for ownership of The Salt Lake Tribune, which is currently owned by … hell, I don't know. Somebody, I guess. I don't pay enough attention to really know. I make deadline and try not to annoy my editor. That's it.

However, the possible demise of The Salt Lake Tribune is an important issue for others. So the inquiry regarding my future comes in three basic tones: mild curiosity, genuine concern and ill-concealed glee. The answer is the same for all. Here it is.

If the Tribune goes under, I plan on serving another LDS Church mission. In fact, I've already submitted my papers.

Believe it or not, the LDS Church has an Antarctic, McMurdo, Penguin Counting Mission. There's also a Bosnia, Neanderthal Genealogy Mission.

OK, I'll be serious for a minute. I only brought up the mission idea because just last week a grouch on TRAX told me that the LDS Church would probably buy The Tribune just to shut me up.

"And that Penny Stack woman, too. She's anti-Mormon just like you."

I told him, politely, that he wasn't thinking hard enough. Why would the LDS Church go to all the bother and spend millions of dollars to buy The Tribune to silence me when it could just give me a fraction of that to go away?

"And it's PEGGY Stack, Mr. Financial Wizard."

The truth is I have no plans if The Tribune is forced out of business or acquired by new masters who do not suffer fools well. It's rare I ever think that far ahead about anything. Maybe I should.

I'm too old to go back to being a cop (and wouldn't even if I wasn't), my hip won't let me be a full-time cowboy for Tavaputs Ranch, I'm too much of a smartass to be a greeter at Walmart, and there aren't that many jobs where people my age get to use explosives.

Honestly, I never planned any job I ever had. They always just sort of found me. "Hey, you wanna kill rats?" or "You know how to use a power saw?" and "How good are you at dodging machine-gun fire?"

It was a series of personal blunders and other people's ideas that got me here, so I guess it's time I grew up and started thinking of my future.

I've just never been one of those people who knew from grade school that he or she was going to be a doctor or an astronaut. It might have been personal indifference, or maybe it was only that I changed my mind every few days.

The truth is I have no idea what will eventually happen to The Tribune. But then I've always felt the same way about myself, so I guess I'm OK.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley