I'm thinking about doo-doo and also to-do.

Stay with me please.

The proposed killing of Canada geese which have been "dropping" by in more ways than one in Allegheny County's North Park, caught my eye.

I love looking at them floating on the water, but I'd like to think there is a better way than killing to discourage geese from littering our shores and parks, but I have no answers.

I'm not sure there is an answer, beyond destroying unhatched eggs, which is now being done.

It's bad what the geese are doing. It's nature, but it's bad.

I haven't been to the parks here, but I recall my one and only visit to Ellis Island a few years ago and the Canada geese had taken over big time.

You literally could not walk around the building where our ancestors were welcomed without stepping in a pile of unwelcome doo-doo.

I haven't been back. I wonder if that problem was resolved, and if so, could they talk to someone here about the method used? If it is still bad and getting worse, what can be done?

If such a bird lived on my street I would complain but could never kill it. But in honesty I might hire someone to do it when I wasn't looking. It can get out of hand and far worse than dogs who do their duty on your front lawn.

Those who took time to measure the Canada goose droppings deserve some kind of medal for valor.

The Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services estimate 1.5 pounds of feces daily per goose. That brings the total weekly droppings for 700 geese in North Park to 3 tons.

Three tons! I'm trying to wrap my brain around that tonnage. It isn't easy. I do know my nose turns up at the thought.

Now, about to-do, rather than doo-doo.

Thanks to our PG editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers, I am making an effort to undo the message his recent cartoon portrayed.

It referred to the new "forever" stamp as a joke. I wasn't laughing. I knew he was right.

With letter writing becoming almost obsolete as a form of correspondence, which he cleverly drew, what's the big deal about such a stamp keeping the 41-cent price forever?

Who writes letters anyhow? And we are always encouraged to pay bills online, to save postage.

Where was the forever stamp when we needed it, when we were writing lots of letters and the price of a stamp was one numeral?

So, now rather than the first of the year I am making a resolution: I will write more and e-mail less. I will forever buy and use stamps, even at 41 cents.

Thank you Mr. Rogers for reminding me.

Yes, it costs more. In fact, it will surely diminish the already diminishing tradition of sending Christmas cards. That's been slowing down since the 3-cent stamp disappeared as far as I can tell.

Cards have become more expensive as well. It's almost cheaper to call everyone on your list.

My fingers don't move as easily as they once did, and my knuckles show signs of arthritis. No excuse for not writing. And don't waste precious effort explaining to someone why your writing is shaky or going downhill!

The thrill of receiving a personal note these days is, well, a thrill -- chicken scratch or block printed -- it's from YOU! Do it!

I like to see handwriting on an envelope, even slightly illegible, don't you?

So if I write more letters, what about other shortcuts? I won't go into dinners-in-a-box or dinner delivered -- just a phone call away.

I do that, too. I have never been a cook beyond basics. I appreciate somebody else's cooking. You have to be strong (some would call it eccentric or stubborn) to try to keep some of the individual in all of us alive -- penning a note with a shaky hand or baking a lopsided cake.

Still, the family dinner prepared by mom or dad or sis or whomever? MasterCard knows. Priceless.

So is a handwritten note. That's on my to-do list.

Geese will do what they have to doo-doo. I can write a note. I can't help the county parks director. Sad, but true.

First Published: June 10, 2007, 12:30 a.m.