The sick shuttle bus

While returning from vacation in Southern California during break, my parents and I took a rental car shuttle to the airport terminal when the bus began to shake and emit strange noises that didn't seem normal.\nAs the shuttle slowly plodded to the America West terminal, the friendly driver told us that the shuttle's odometer read 280,000 miles and the engine was in its last months.\nHe smiled and looked back at us and said, "That's equivalent to going around the world nine times!"\nI thought about the shuttle's repetitive route from the rental car area to the terminals at the Ontario Airport. Then I pondered the stellar lead I could create if I wrote a profile on the bus driver: How he has driven around the world nine times but in a two-mile circumference around the airport.\nWhen I caught myself thinking about leads and quotes on vacation, I knew it was time to return to the Indiana Daily Student. The newsroom sucks me back in -- and I'll admit it's a good thing.\nThe shuttle driver and his sick bus reminded me that story ideas are everywhere and how much I crave to include these harder-to-find stories in the arts section. \nLike Ernie Pyle once said, "You can hardly walk down the street without running into the germ of something that may turn up an interesting story if you're on the lookout for it."\nWhat about a thrift store employee who has watched Bloomington's fashion trends evolve and return over the years through faded tees and plastic jewelry?\nWhat about the story with no press release, like a random business student who sheds his suit and tie at night to become the lead singer in a struggling punk band?\nAs an editor, I look forward to including IU Auditorium, the Theatre and Drama Department and SoFA gallery events, but I would love for readers and reporters to suggest obscure ideas about the arts at IU and in Bloomington.\nAssistant editor Patrice Worthy and I also plan to make the page appropriately visual, with more stand-alone photos and spicy graphic illustrations. The arts section refuses to stand subtly behind the Sports section. No way!\nSince I do most of my work in the newsroom and confines of Ernie Pyle Hall, I invite readers who are out and about on campus to contact me with arts-related story ideas. \nIdeas can come from the owner of one of Bloomington's ethnic restaurants, your professor or someone your roommate knows by six degrees of separation.\nJust the thought of the friendly driver transferring passengers for years, carrying thousands of suitcases on and off the bus, allows me to appreciate the facet of journalism aside from the top news piece. Talk about a great story.