Picture the possibilities when the nightly deadline closes in

Being in charge of putting a daily newspaper can be part air traffic controller, part jigsaw puzzle.

In reality, it's often a series of seat-of-the-pants decisions. This plane needs to land. That one has enough fuel to last until tomorrow.

If you can't make a decision, won't make a decision or just plain hate making decisions, it's probably not the life for you.

Just as some stories seem to almost write themselves with interesting detail and insightful quotes, oftentimes the front page snaps together like a beginner Lego kit.

Other times it's like a cruel joke trying to make the pieces fit, as if someone has made off with a couple of key puzzle pieces and your jigsaw masterpiece is coming together about as well as a computer desk from the Big Box Store.

Last Tuesday night was one of those nights. Instead of smoothly landing a couple jets and sending the pages on to the press, we ran into one of those some-assembly-required, entertainment center-building nightmares.

As Lauren Boucher worked to create a front-page layout, it became painfully obvious we were decidedly lacking an interesting and/or colorful piece of art.

We had photos that had to go because they illustrated a particular story. We had photos that don't usually get prime position because they were basically people just standing and staring into the camera. We had nada.

Not that we didn't have our chances earlier in the day to cement a good Page 1 shot.

Word came down about a possible structure fire supposedly along Rangeline Road. Reporter Joyce Orlando dutifully grabbed her camera, jumped in her Subaru and headed in the general direction of Fillmore. But she never found a fire. No flames, no smoke, no hits, no runs, no errors.

Turns out that fire might actually have been totally in the opposite direction, apparently somewhere out in Madison Township. Unfortunately we are still awaiting any information on it to emerge.

Strike two in the quest for front-page art came when word spread about the natural gas leak at Olive and Locust streets. However, the action was essentially over and the firefighters packing up as we arrived. Nothing to see here, folks, and we moved on. It really wasn't much of a loss anyway. Natural gas isn't quite as photogenic as crackling flames or Miley Cyrus.

As afternoon dissolved into evening, we found ourselves still without a decent photo. That's when I remembered an email from good, old Darrel Wiatt, who had provided a link to photos posted of the annual Russellville Halloween Social.

I flipped through his 195 Facebook photos, finding a cute little girl on a red tricycle decorated as a "candy combine" and another little cutie dressed as a pumpkin and posing with her mom as nice possibilities.

Unfortunately, there were no names attached, and it's pretty much a cardinal sin to run a photo so prominently featuring someone without identifying them. With names, our problem was solved, without we still had glaring hole on the page as the evening ticked away.

So the search was on. Mustering up my best Columbo investigative powers (sans cigar stub and rumpled raincoat), I started with three phone numbers Wiatt had provided. The first one rang into oblivion, the second was answered by his wife, who advised me to call the third one, his cell phone, since he was en route to cantata practice and was somewhere between Crawfordsville and Browns Valley.

His cell phone rang to voicemail, so I was back at square one. But during the brief conversation with this wife, she told me the little girl on the trike combine was "Paul Hodgen's daughter." Again, I can't write a caption that says, "Paul Hodgen's daughter looks really cute as she pedals into the Halloween Social."

So I rummaged for a Putnam County phone book. You remember those, they used to be vital to our existence. Everybody's number was in that book. But not anymore, and the only Hodgen in Putnam County was listed as Abe. Honest.

But I called anyway, hoping Paul would be a relative or they might know the little girl's name. It rang until the answering machine came on and I left an exasperatingly long explanation of what I needed with little hope of hearing anything by 9 p.m., my own self-imposed deadline for going to Plan Z.

Hanging up the phone, I started to focus on another idea, now that it was dark outside and photo ops were waning.

But my phone soon rang, and the caller cheerfully announced herself as Shirley Hodgen, mother of Paul and grandmother of little Sidney. We chatted like old friends as she even offered insight into the other mystery photo guests. As we talked on her land line, she called Paul on her cell to get his permission to give me the info and enable the picture to be published.

But that didn't solve the other little mystery, although I now had a last name of Mitchell and the hometown of Waveland as clues.

"Just one more thing, ma'am," I wanted to ask a la Peer Falk. "Do you know what the little girl's first name might be?"

The answer was no, so I returned to the Russellville Facebook page (full disclosure here, I am on Facebook about as often as I dance by the light of the moon ... in other words, never).

But after navigating through "Likes" and "Tags" and thumbs-up icons, I connected with a Facebook page for the Mitchells, and after sorting through photos that I'm sure only a mother could love, I unmistakably found our little darling holding a cake with "Happy Birthday, Kennedy" written on it. A comment underneath it confirmed she was indeed the Kennedy pictured.

So we had our IDs after all that. Had cute, colorful photos for the front page, and I was free to go home as the clock struck nine.

Standing in front of my desk to leave, I heard my phone rang. Worried it might be a late obituary addition, I lunged for the receiver.

"It's Darrell Wiatt returning your call," came the muffled voice from the other end.

In 30 seconds he had confirmed what had just taken me more than two hours to unearth.

"Call anytime," Wiatt chirped, trying to ease my frustration as we wound up our conversation.

Well, picture that ...