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Saturday, July 12, 2003

Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer

It's easy to laugh when you see a giant sausage get smacked and a hot dog fall down. But when you're a hamburger, it hits closer to home.

	Browny the burger, from the Allegheny County Health Department.

Local icon Browny the Burger saw news of the now infamous Milwaukee baseball game incident on television Wednesday night at the airport, on the way home from vacation in Tampa, Fla., and thought, "Oh, my goodness."

"Of course it caught my ear," said Browny. That is, one of the humans who portrays Browny: Cathy Ammon.

Ammon is an environmental health specialist at the Allegheny County Health Department, which launched the walking hamburger back in May 1996. Its anti-E. coli message is, "If I'm pink in the middle, I'm cooked too little."

Ammon was inside the costume a lot for the first three years but stopped while she was pregnant, in part out of concern of getting hurt. She wasn't worried about being attacked; rather, she feared tripping over children she couldn't see from inside the oversized sandwich. In fact, when she reprised the role this spring at her daughter's day-care center, she accidentally bowled her daughter over, but the child was not injured.

That's why Browny always is accompanied by a handler, who's extra handy when there's a mob of excited kids -- what Ammon calls "those possible riot situations."

Ammon said she's been punched a couple of times, by older students, but, "Browny is pretty much foam" and so she hardly felt it.

Now others in the food safety department take turns volunteering as Browny. Ammon doesn't expect the sausage smackdown to put a chill on Browny's schedule, but she remembers thinking at the airport, "I'm glad I don't do Browny anymore."

Clerk-typist Diane Weber, who also walks in Browny's big shoes, said she isn't at all worried about "mascot abuse."

Not that this gig is without risks. A handler once pushed her out of the way of an oncoming car at a Wilkinsburg holiday parade. While lining up for a parade in Lawrenceville, a majorette jumped on Browny's back. Browny didn't fall over and was fine, but, "She was quite a large girl," Weber said.