Tanned and toned and ...

By The Daily Progress Staff

Published: June 20, 2008

There is but one “tanning butler” — the toned and tony Leo de la Hoz, who plies his trade, and his sunscreen, at the Ritz-Carlton South Beach in Miami Beach, Fla.

He is best known as the guardian of skin and secrets, the man who discreetly slathers lotion on “those hard to reach” places, who deftly cleans smeared sunglasses with his special cloth, who flirts with the women and turns the men on to the hottest clubs in town — all without crossing a delicate line of professionalism.

This extra, high-end service for the rich and famous is trademarked by Ritz-Carlton as “the World’s Only Tanning Butler.”

Yes, there can be only one “tanning butler” . . . but many wannabes.

A white T-shirt with the hotel logo and “Tanning Butler” in large block letters is, at $29.50, the best-selling item in the hotel gift shop.

Get out the vote!

What if they gave an election and nobody came?

They did.

Not even the candidates showed up to vote.

Then again, what was the point?

All the candidates were unopposed.

What’s more, tiny Pillsbury, N.D., doesn’t even have voting precinct. Any of the 11 in-town residents would have to drive 12 miles to neighboring Sibley to vote. Residents of the town’s rural area might have to drive farther.

Mayor Darrel Brudevold said he’d ask state election officials what to do next, but doesn’t think things will change.

“[W]hen you’re elected to one of those jobs, well, once you get it, you got it,” said the man who’s been mayor for a dozen years — so far.

A real privy-lege

He’s 79 years old and an outhouse has always been good enough for him.

It ought to be good enough for the township, by gum.

Elbert “Lew” Preston’s old outhouse had run afoul of the Clermont County, Ohio, health officials.

The retired farmer, who’s not in the best of health, lives in what has become a busy shopping area. Although he owns 175 acres that are now potentially valuable, he did not want to go to the expense and trouble of installing a septic system.

Finally he turned to a non-profit agency that helps rural, low-income, disabled and elderly residents. They built him a new “facility” with a tank instead of a mere hole in the ground.

“It’s too nice and complicated to be an outhouse,” he said. “I call it a privy.”

And, yes, it sports the traditional half-moon on the door.