Modularized Code – Show One Category?

I decided to modularize my code as I have a site with various non “blog” functions (to be revised at a later date). At the moment I’ve got a frickin’ FrankenSite on my hands though. 2 pages with the new “look”, 3 pages with the old look. Very “pro”.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, decided to modulerate (since we’re making up words) the code. The modularizination part worked fine, it is now . . .
‘<? include(‘head.php’); ?>
a bunch of content
<? include (‘foot.php’); ?>
but I had it set up so on index.php it only includes the “updates” category. I don’t want to put this in the header because then it will only include “updates” on every page, or I’ll have to have several headers. (Hint: I want to be able to edit ONE header and ONE footer).
I tried putting the “show category”* in the content part of the index and it just ignored it.
So . . .what am I doing wrong?
* = show category with:
‘<?php
$blog = 1;
if (!isset($cat)) {
$cat = “1”;
}
‘