Tossing the sausage

As someone who grew up attending Mass at St. Joseph Catholic Church and obviously attending the Sausage Fest every year, I get a little annoyed with the jokes about the name of the Fest.

I mean, c’mon, my daughters were baptized at that church.

So I threw up a little in my mouth when I finally watched the latest “Vancouver Side” video by local dudes Jim Mains and Gary Bock.

Jim grew up a good Catholic (Gary is an Episcopalian, or “Catholic lite” as he calls it) and the video was made in good fun and the dudes donated money to the school every time someone said “sausage.” All good. But boys will be boys and so they couldn’t resist snickering about how Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt was going to toss the first sausage.

Here’s Leavitt, getting ready. “I’ve been working out,” he told the crowd. “I can throw it really far.”

The 10-year-old girl who caught the sausage won carnival ride tickets and a lollipop.

Watch the Sausage Fest video, which includes cameos by Councilors Larry Smith and Bart Hansen (and Councilors Jeanne Stewart and Jack Burkman are on stage too, watching Leavitt) on their website.

And congrats to the local dudes, as they’ve hit a total of 100,000 hits on their Vancouver Side videos.

Oh, and the dudes aren’t the first to snicker about the Fest on camera. Stephen Colbert had a memorable interview with then-U.S. Rep. Brian Baird in 2007.