oracle sql case statement

How do I do a case statement within oracle 8.0.3 to do the following

SELECT p.name,
CASE WHEN p.ddate='01/01/2001' THEN 'begining of year' WHEN p.disposed is null then 'Alive'
from persons p;

This is a totaly made up example so it might not make sense, but this should return the following

mike begining of year
joe Alive
tammy beginning of year

from this table

mike  01/01/2001  NULL
joe   01/02/2001  NULL
tammy 01/01/2001  Y

Thanks Received on Mon Feb 11 2002 - 23:12:38 CET