Goose

CATCALLS ARE GRATIS THANKS TO LOVING OWNER The owner of a wandering cat has bought a telephone charge card for her flighty feline so people can phone home and say where the Black Burmese has strayed in search of adventure. Beryl Venters said 6-year-old Cagney was always walking away from her home in the southern English city of Winchester. So Cagney now has a charge card attached to her collar. "Cagney is always sticking her nose into things and running off chasing anything that moves.

Albert Marzano, 89, who designed the goose logo for the Wawa convenience-store chain, died of heart failure Sunday at his Philadelphia home. Mr. Marzano, who attended South Philadelphia High School, took classes in the 1930s at the Graphic Sketch Club and the Plastic Club, both in Philadelphia. But, his son Anton said, "he was largely self-taught. " During his Army service in World War II, Mr. Marzano illustrated military posters and signs, his son said. His work was so good that it "kept him out of combat.

GO to philly.com/ hotbutton to cast your vote for who's been the biggest hero and who's been the biggest villain of the past week. HERO a) The Nutter administration, for wisely refusing $10 million from the American Beverage Association to fund an anti-obesity campaign. b) The Pa. Supreme Court, for finally allowing cameras to tape court sessions. c) Fertile yuppies, for producing a "demographic wave" of school-age children that could - so say Center City District officials - lead to improved public schools in the area.

The problem here is that neither the goose nor the gander knows what's good for them. If they did, they'd pack up the goslings and move somewhere else. They would leave behind the serene ponds, shorn grasses and wide-open spaces of this base and neighboring Fort Dix if they knew that McGuire's own flock of birds - C141 Starlifters, KC-10 Extenders and KC-135 Stratotankers - are lethal to geese. It happens in an instant: A low-flying 20-pound goose is sucked into a vortex of air rushing toward the burners of a turbofan engine.

The 21 third graders in Anne Pass' class sit without moving or speaking, their frenetic energy transformed for the moment into focused attention on the story of Tricky the Turtle and Red Bill the Goose. The students are listening to Pat Ciarrocchi, KYW-TV (Channel 3) reporter, read the children's story she finished writing especially for this group. Ciarrocchi and dozens of others assisted Tuesday in the fifth annual VIP Readers program sponsored by the Lower Merion Education Association, the teachers' union.

WHEN YOU went to Wayne Kroeger's house, in Warminster, you had to be careful not to step on the rabbits, to duck the stuffed goose hanging from the ceiling and not to freak out at the sight of the multitude of stuffed fauna in various poses throughout. It seemed as if nearly every species of feathered and four-legged creature was on display, each with its own habitat theme, like the raccoon with a trash can in its paw and its nose in a peanut-butter jar. And those rabbits. They were household pets, and if you visited during a holiday they would be dolled-up accordingly: Santa outfits for Christmas, Irish hats for St. Patrick's Day. You might not have believed that a rabbit would hold still for such shenanigans, but then you didn't know the black-and-white Dutches belonging to Wayne and his wife, Joan.

THEY SAY IDLE hands are the devil's workshop. Well, they're right. In recent weeks, I've seen folks with time surpluses do some pretty outrageous things, and frankly, I'm tired of it. Don't get me wrong. I'm tempted to do crazy stuff sometimes, but if I ran through an airport in a Speedo and some shower shoes while shouting, "Gimme a medal, I'm Michael Phelps!" somebody might call the cops. If I took a boom box to church, turned on Kanye West, and approached the preacher mid-sermon to challenge him to a break-dancing contest, they might have me committed.

Protection for fetuses? Congress's concern for life would be funny if it weren't so hypocritical. These protectors of the "unborn," these champions of life, voted against national health care for children, Head Start and school lunch programs. Save those fetuses, but once they're born, let them starve! These are the same people who voted to cut back welfare benefits to women with children (although corporate welfare is fine) but have nothing to say about making deadbeat dads pay for the children they helped create.

It seems inconceivable that a Philadelphia neighborhood can have existed this long without landing an Italian BYOB. Those satisfyingly simple trattorias have spread in epidemic proportions across the city in recent years, and become, like the corner coffee shop, the local tavern, or a convenient Wawa, one of the basic amenities of a quality urban life. So it's no surprise that my friends in Fairmount were frothing with excitement when they finally got their Gnocchetti Moment with the recent opening of L'Oca.

The warning signs seem as prevalent as squirrels racing across suburban roads. On a yellow diamond-shaped sign, the silhouette of a leaping deer - a warning of a place where deer can dash across the road and smash into a car. One deer warning. Another deer warning. They seem to be everywhere. Then a different sign in Montgomery County catches the eye: On a yellow diamond-shaped sign, "Golden retriever Xing. " A few days later, another warning in another Montgomery County town: Near a pond where geese congregate, on a similar yellow diamond shape, a silhouette of a waterfowl.