By the time we get there it is already a raucous party. The elderly Freeland Hall on Whidbey island, off the coast of Seattle, with its walls and ceiling made of short strips of ancient pine boards, vibrates with the noise. Two hundred fifty people have packed themselves in tonight to eat a simple box dinner on folding tables and watch six men make fools of themselves. One of them will be voted Mr South Whidbey. The voting is done by buying votes, in the form of business card-sized bits of paper, for $1 a card. There is much encouragement to buy as many cards as possible. As I sit there eating my chicken salad, men in odd outfits-one wears a kind of apron upon which is airbrushed a nude female form with a fig leaf, another is got up as Abe Lincoln-circulate with cardboard beer six-pack carriers. Where the beer would be there are paper cups with the names of the contestants, who are also wearing improbable outfits and who range in age from one man in his early 30s wearing a kilt and sporting a chain saw-sort of like one of the Village People seen by someone […]