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On a wall in Norman Constantine's room hangs a poster of Bruce Lee, that powerful character from the old martial arts movies. It seems only fitting. After all, Norm Constantine was always a pretty powerful character himself. For two years a decade ago, the handsome, 6-foot karate black belt reigned as the colorful Nittany Lion mascot at Pennsylvania State University. Off the field, his tireless array of activities instructing, coaching and bringing cheer to disabled people would make the President's schedule look leisurely.

It was sometime in the spring - she's not certain of the date - when Helen Steinbacher swung open a long-locked safe in her Chester County home. Widowed since 1966, Steinbacher had lost the key to the safe years before and "had no idea what was in it. " But her son Michael "had been bugging me for years" to find out what was inside, she recalled last week. And so she had called a locksmith. Inside she found a confusing hodgepodge of papers and artwork that had belonged to her husband, Charles, who for 30 years was art director at the George Moll advertising agency in Philadelphia.

Bernie Mason spent World War II moving Army tanks, sometimes picking them up and setting them down with his bare hands. He's not superhuman. And the tanks weren't some ultralight secret weapon. It was combat trickery. As a 21-year-old lieutenant, Mason helped lead a handpicked unit of artists and creative thinkers who deployed and arranged highly detailed, inflatable rubber tanks - and trucks, jeeps, and artillery - to fool the Germans into thinking the Americans had more firepower than they actually did or that the equipment was somewhere other than where it really was. Officially, the unit was the 23d Headquarters Special Troops.

WDAS-FM program director Joe "Butterball" Tamburro, who will take his place today on Philadelphia's musical Walk of Fame on South Broad Street, has survived through thick and thin. He recalls one day relatively early in his career. He was playing a new record he thought was wonderful, but his boss didn't like it. "He called me on the hotline and told me to take that piece of garbage and throw it in the trash. And never, ever put another record on his radio station without his permission.

There's a technique to visiting country stores in rural Maine. Unfortunately, I don't know it. When I walk into a store like Solari's, here in Fryeburg, the chattering stops and it grows unnaturally quiet. People sitting on stools and milk crates sip coffee, eat their powdered-sugar doughnuts and don't say a word. They just look at me like I've stopped in from Mars on my way to the Maine coast. I've tried most tricks. I've worn baseball caps (Red Sox) and tractor caps (John Deere)

The grand opening of Wilhelmina Philadelphia included telltale signs of a big-league modeling agency: golf ball-sized shrimp, a nicely styled runway presentation, and local fashionistas preening front and center. But there was something small-town about the late June soiree at Trust, an Old City hot spot. Maybe it was the way Wilhelmina local owner Kelli Walters (to the horror of spectators) butchered the pronunciation of red-carpet design duo Badgley Mischka. Or maybe it was the models who unsteadily teetered down the runway.

When cameraman Garrett Brown chased Sylvester Stallone up the Art Museum stairs in 1975 to bag the signature shot of Rocky (1976), Philadelphia was not on Hollywood's radar. "We hadn't a clue how to host a movie," recalls Brown, a longtime resident of Society Hill. Directors complained of city ineptitude. There was no agency to scout locations, issue permits, or announce that electricians were needed. "Filming here was eccentric and inconsistent until Sharon came along and sorted us out. " That would be Sharon Pinkenson, since 1992 the executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, which is celebrating its silver anniversary.

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Bob McMurtrie was a smart, lanky kid with eyes for bigger places than Two Street, the hard-bitten pocket of South Philadelphia where he came from. At 22, McMurtrie set out on a journey of unfathomable distance in pursuit of glitter and riches. From Two Street, he traveled to Center City, where he got a job in 1964 as a clerk in a real estate office. He worked hard and kept his eye out for opportunities. By 1990, he'd stitched together a small empire. His assets were $29 million.

Her name may be Prudish, but police say she's anything but. Upper Darby police said they busted a brothel in Drexel Hill last week and arrested one of the prostitutes, Amy Prudish, and the madam of the house, Margaret Dougherty. Dougherty, 41, ran the brothel out of her rowhouse on Ardmore Avenue near Lans-downe during the day, when her son was in elementary school, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said. Police were alerted to the operation by concerned neighbors and by a printout advertising "massages by beautiful women" that had been sent anonymously to the department, Chitwood said.