Sensitivity? It Won’T Count In This Contest

Sitting in a ballpark last summer, Cori Reeves told her husband, Mark, she was starving and wanted to go out to a nice dinner after the baseball game.

It was, after all, Cori’s birthday.

Mark left and returned a few minutes later. With a hot dog for the birthday girl.

An appalled friend, Jaqueline Sandberg, told the brazen hubby what a cheapskate he was.

Nonplussed, he wisecracked: “It’s more than she ever got!” he said, pointing to his ex-wife who was sitting close enough to hear the exchange.

This sensitive exchange prompted Sandberg to nominate Reeves for Manliest Man of the Inland Northwest.

“Only a ‘Manly Man’ could carry off such a comment and have everyone laughing,” she wrote in her nomination letter. “Most men would leave the ballpark with either hot dog stuck all over their face or their ears pinned back.”

Correctamundo, Jacqueline. Mark Reeves is the winner hands down.

He is a former semi-pro baseball player who drives a Budweiser beer truck. “They call me the ‘Sultan of Suds,”’ said Reeves of the nickname his co-workers at B&B Distributing gave him.

Reeves drives a ‘78 Chevy four-by-four that still has an eight-track player. “I only have one tape that’s been in it 18 years,” he said. “The Eagles’ Greatest Hits.”

Last month I asked for submissions from which to pick an ambassador to attend the Third Annual Manly Man Festival on June 20 in Rosyln, Wash. The tongue-in-cheek festival spoofs maleness with a pig roast, toolbelt contest, Spam cookoff and muscle-flexing parade through downtown Roslyn.

Reeves’ nomination was one of two dozen hilarious entries. The top 10 finalists were judged by a panel of experts over beers one night at the Checkerboard Tavern.

The experts included me, fellow columnist Jim “Jimmy” Kershner and business writer Lori Sudermann.

“I’m the token chick, right?” carped Sudermann as we headed for the Checkerboard. Hey, I told her, we don’t want those NOW harpies getting in a twist over judging gender.

Sudermann kept Kershner from awarding bonus manly points to candidate Glen Blanchard because the guy lives in North Idaho.

“North Idaho is a very rugged, manly place,” argued Kershner.

“Yeah, but he lives in Coeur d’Alene,” countered Sudermann. “It’s a resort town. It has tourists and boutiques.”

Good point, though ultimately it didn’t matter. We all recoiled in horror while reading the nomination submitted by Blanchard’s girlfriend, Sherry Bullard.

“The stylists all insist he has enough hair to fill a mattress,” wrote Bullard.

A manly guy going to stylists? Sorry, Glen. Minus 100 points.

A whopping penalty was needed to deal with nominee Ron Large.

Ron’s last name won him 10 points. He earned another 10 for liking beer, riding motorcycles and having scars. Then his wife, Robbie Newill, listed some disturbing information: He teaches ethics and went to Princeton Theological Seminary on a Rockefeller Scholarship.

“Ethics? Princeton?” cried an outraged Kershner. “Minus 20,000 points.”

Speaking of manly names, Washington Trust loan officer Kevin Bacon was judged worthy of the runner-up spot.

Should Reeves be unable to attend the festival (perhaps due to blunt trauma inflicted by a certain ex-wife), Bacon will be asked to fill his boots.

Not only does he share the name of a very manly actor, but bacon is debatably the manliest of meats.

Bacon the banker was nominated by a couple of co-workers. They described him as “one buff hockey player with buns and abs of steel.” Unfortunately, they also mentioned that he “enjoys aerobics on his lunch hour.”

Call me old-fashioned, but real men don’t flounce around in leotards feeling the burn to disco music.

Sorry, Kevin. You’re manly all right, but you’re no Sultan of Suds.