Following
a long career as a financial executive, during which I served as VP & CFO of a publicly-traded corporation, I took early
retirement in 1996 to pursue my interest in the history and people of Wales before it became a part of England. After
creating a private foundation and erecting a small library, I spent several years accumulating virtually every important written
work bearing on the subject...most of which are otherwise unavailable in the US.
After a number of years researching
various topics on which others seemed to have reached unlikely conclusions, I recently began publishing short papers suggesting
wholly different views of those historical events. These can be found on the foundation's website www.ancientwalesstudies.org
The library is located about
100 yards from my home in the countryside of far east Texas, and I normally spend 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in its offices.
My wife of 38 years passed away in 1998 and we had no children. For a periodic break from my historical research, I
began to look for an interesting hobby and found Survivor. The first event I attended was SurvivorFest in 2002, where I met
Tasha and her mom. Later, I helped them create and provided the initial funding for Reality4diabetes, a foundation which
raises money for diabetes research by staging fun events attended by Survivors and other realityTV celebs.
Other annual events which I attend,
as well as help sponsor, are the Cocoa Beach weekend bash and Project Cool in Toronto. During these events and
others, I have met most of the castaways and made many personal friends. Almost everything in my collection
of memorabilia was obtained directly from them, the rest at auctions.
Over the years, I have met
and/or corresponded with dozens of other fans including a few within the "spoiler" community. While I've never
sought out nor even been told any non-public information about the TV game, the fact that I once had lunch with a group
of them (I knew none of them before that, we met at a charity event) has placed me on a CBS Press "enemies list".
Maintained by the department which prepares the Finale guest list, it is used to make sure that no one who they can identify
as an "internet fan" will ever appear on that guest list. It is my belief that none of the CBS executives are aware
of this Nixonian, mean-spirited treatment of their viewers at the hands of a small faction within their Los Angeles
office. No public corporation would approve such an "enemies list" lest it explode into tabloid headlines.
And even Nixon never placed his contributors on his infamous list. (Update: I was recently in the live audience for my
9th Survivor Finale and the fan-hating CBS lady no longer has anything to do with the guest list)
Through it all, I have become one of
the best-known Survivor fans if not the biggest. (I was told recently that ex-castaways who attended the Long Island
event picked their choices as the Top 5 fans, not all of whom were there. My friends Jan Weigle, Wezzie, Big Mike and
Ziggy were rated #2-#5; I'll let you guess who was #1) Many of the castaways regard me as their favorite fan and the feeling
is mutual...I have found something to admire in each of them and to love in a few. What other fan do you know who not
only has a thread devoted to them on the Sucks Forum, but 111 pages of their brand of envy?
