NEWS LITE : MAN RETURNS $10,000 BOND.

Down on his luck but holding an invitation to a nice dinner, Alan Brown went to a thrift store and bought a used suit for $15, leaving him just $6 to his name. After the dinner, he reached into one of the pockets for a cigarette and found a $10,000 savings bond.

``I must admit I was thinking maybe there is a nice reward in this,'' he said.

Brown, 31, from Lindenwold, N.J., recently lost his job as a school custodian and his unemployment ran out in May. His wife lost her job when a candy store closed. They have a 3-year-old daughter, Holly Ann, to support.

But he found that the bond's owner needed it even more than he did.

The owner's address was on the bond, and a letter soon brought a response.

``I have a tendency of hiding things and don't know where I put them,'' George Sisak wrote. ``If you feel it is rightfully mine, I thank you for being honest. If not, let your conscience be your guide.

``P.S. I am 84 years old and live in a convalescent home.''

Brown found a ride to Pottstown on Thursday and found Sisak and his 84-year-old wife, Johanna, at the Manor Care Health Services facility. Sisak said he had given the suit away before they moved into the center.

The couple had figured their $90,000 in savings and their Social Security checks would pay their way at the center, but after they were injured in a traffic crash the cost of their care tripled to $4,000 a month.

Brown's only reward was gas money for the trip, but he doesn't regret the decision.

Disney World fan wins trip

The winner needed a trip to Disney World like Sleeping Beauty needed a nap.

Philadelphian Chuck Earling is so infatuated with the Florida theme park he's made the trip 38 times.

``Can you imagine the magic?'' Earling said after winning trip No. 39 in a radio station giveaway.

The trip slated for next weekend forced Earling and his wife to change plans for their 14th anniversary celebration this weekend - a trip to Disney World, of course.

Earling, athletic director at Washington Township High School, has made nearly half of his Disney World visits chaperoning senior class trips. The rest all came on his own time.

When he'll make trip No. 40 is no mystery. He's rescheduled the postponed anniversary trip for August.

Alligator invades

Brooklyn

Adam Odetalla, 25, was putting the watering hose away in his yard in Brooklyn when he saw the thing. It was half hidden under the round plastic baby pool, a menacing dark-green presence with beady eyes and razor-sharp teeth.

Suddenly, it lunged and snapped at him.

``Alligator! Alligator! Go back!'' he shouted at his sister, Diana, 14, brother, Ahmad, 10, and mother, Mona Odetalla, who were in the yard of their home in Bath Beach-Bensonhurst, catching a breath of air up from Gravesend Bay at dusk Friday night.

The creature was 2-1/2 feet long and slithered over the lawn, looking for a way out, but found itself hemmed in by a chain-link fence.

``It kept snapping at us,'' Diana said. ``Finally, Adam turned over the baby pool and put that on top of it.''

The police were called. The Center for Animal Care and Control, a private agency that has a contract with the city to care for stray animals, was called. An emergency services truck came, with nets and ropes and poles. ``It was a hot night, and the whole neighborhood came to watch,'' Diana Odetalla said.

Where did the alligator come from? Tales of alligators living in the sewers of New York go back to the 1930s, and there have been reports of alligator sightings from time to time in the East River, the Bronx River, the Kissena Park Lake in Queens and other spots. A few days ago one was spotted on a golf course on Staten Island.

``We believe it came from somebody raising it from a baby, a pet,'' Diana said.

Trudeau calls art `ungentlemanly'

Garry Trudeau hasn't penned the biting comic strip ``Doonesbury'' without fallout. He's been blasted as mean-spirited and the strip has been yanked from newspapers for being too controversial.

``There is no denying that satire is an ungentlemanly art,'' Trudeau said last week. ``As if that weren't enough, this savage and unregulated sport is protected by the United States Constitution.''

In a speech titled ``What a Long, Strange Strip It's Been,'' the cartoonist recounted a career that included a Pulitzer Prize in 1975, the first ever for a comic strip.

He told about how Jeb Bush, son of the former president, took him aside at a Republican convention and said: ``Walk softly.''

Woman wins fame winning cluck-off

Jaclyn Layton of Virginia sounds modest in describing her talent:

``Basically, I just cluck.''

Crowned top pseudo-hen at a chicken-clucking contest in Baltimore, the Radford University junior appeared on ``The Tonight Show with Jay Leno'' last week to show off her cackling capability.

``She's really good at doing it,'' said her proud father, Roger Layton. ``She got it from her mother.''

The Leno show heard about it and immediately wanted her after she won a small, neighborhood-sponsored contest June 18 while visiting a friend in Baltimore. She entered on a lark, besting 11 other contestants for the title and a chicken restaurant gift certificate.

During her ``Tonight'' show appearance, Leno and guest Drew Carey suggested she go to L.A.'s House of Blues, where she gave another clucking performance.

Layton, inspired to start clucking by a TV commercial, was as surprised as anyone at her brush with fame.

``I had no idea that there was any use for chicken clucking at all,'' she said.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Cartoonist Garry Trudeau shows one of his original strips at a New York boutique in January 1996.

Associated Press

(2) Veep knocks 'em dead

Vice President Al Gore watches Jerry McEntee, right, respond to a joke he delivered in Des Moines, Iowa, to a convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, of which McEntee is the president.

Associated Press