Talking with T-Bird: Sue Hawk

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[00:00:18] Your life will never be the same, cause we're talking with T-Bird.

[00:01:09] Yes, we're back talking with T-Bird! And this may in fact be the biggest talking with T-Bird yet, because today T-Bird has tracked down an all-timer. Of course, we all know from Survivor Borneo, Survivor All-Stars, Sue Hawk. And here's the woman who tracked her down, it's Teresa T-Bird Cooper. I was waiting for you today. Hi, Rob.

[00:01:34] Yes, T-Bird. Incredible. After so much time, this was somebody when we first started to come up with the idea for talking with T-Bird, who could we find? I think this was maybe one of the initial names that we started working on. And T-Bird, the amount of work you've done to get us to this day is incredible. Like that, this could be like its own podcast of your journey to get here.

[00:02:00] So Rob, I think when we started talking with T-Bird, this is our seventh episode, you gave me a short list of maybe 12 names, real short. Seventh year. Of what? Seventh year of five years. Seven years. Seven years ago of a short list. And for me, I always wanted to do people that are off the radar, that are not here. So Sue Hawk was and has been off the radar.

[00:02:24] So I finally found or someone helped me find a mailing address for her. But Sue was moving around a lot. So I just started writing her letters and I'd wait a few months and I'd write another letter. And then I'd, you know, come back, you know, address not good.

[00:02:46] So I'd, you know, send another letter that all of a sudden, one day, one day in 2022, the first letter came back from Sue Hawk. And it says up here, Hawk is a P.O. box. I mean, I have cold chills now, this many years later, because I started maybe two years prior. And that's where it started from there. We just started letter writing. She writes letters, very much old school, old soul.

[00:03:17] She, when I first mentioned about the podcast, it was absolutely no, she has no interest. And I got it. I totally understood. But I really enjoyed communicating with her that it just it didn't matter. I was just going to keep that going. And then from there, we started. She texted me one day. So the last couple of years we've been texting. And then I think I mentioned again, because she tells these phenomenal stories, which I'm sure you'll hear today with her podcast.

[00:03:46] And then I said, Sue, you know, if you ever want to talk with Rob and me on the podcast, she goes, oh, no, I don't have any interest in that. Then all of a sudden, a couple of months ago when she said, I'm turning 65. I think I'm ready. I'm ready to do a chat with you and Rob. So I don't know. It's it's it was. And of course, I was nervous that it might not come together because I wanted it so badly to come together. So we've got Sue Hawk today. All right.

[00:04:16] Well, T-Bird, kudos to you. It's an incredible job, a testament to your dedication. And so we're so excited. Why don't we go ahead and bring in the great Sue Hawk? Take it away. Picture yourself stranded on an island with 16 strangers where snakes devour rats. In 2000, 6,000 hopeful applicants applied for an adventure of a lifetime, dropped off in the jungles of Pulau Tiga, a remote Borneo Island.

[00:04:44] Our guest today applied her audition video, a Gilligan's Island inspired rhyming theme. She was a 38 year old truck driver from Wisconsin who described herself as motivated, resourceful and flexible. She was tough and figured being outdoor in the bush would be a lot easier than driving a truck every day to Chicago. There was no blueprint on how to play the game. No preconceived notions. Her strategy was simple.

[00:05:14] Quote, just play the role of the dumb redneck. People like think rednecks are so vulnerable and dumb. They'll talk to him openly. End quote. She understood the assignment. She said the hardest part was the boredom. Also challenging the sand fleas, cold rain and the stingrays, which had stung her twice. She didn't trust anybody, but thought she had formed a real friendship with another player saying, quote, we are like sisters, end quote.

[00:05:43] But on day 37 of 39 days, she was voted out by the one that she had trusted 100%.

[00:05:49] At the final tribal council with more than 50 million viewers, she fiercely stood up with her honest, authentic, unfiltered emotional speech comparing the final two to a rat and a snake stating, quote, I feel we owe it to the island spirits that we have learned to come to know to let it be in the end the way Mother Nature intended it to be for the snake to eat the rat. End quote. End quote.

[00:06:18] And so it was. She made television history and reality TV exploded into real life. Her fiery tirade set the standard for jury speeches to follow. No surprise, she would be asked back for the first Survivor All Stars in February 2004. But on day 17, feeling sexually violated during an immunity challenge, she decided she could not continue in the game.

[00:06:44] She did appearances up to 2005, but since has lived a life out of the public with her husband of close to 40 years. I introduced the smart, no-nonsense, loyal, philosophical woman turning 65 on August 17th, who agreed, who agreed that, quote, a happy birthday to Susan podcast, end quote, was now the perfect time for our chat.

[00:07:14] The unapologetic Sue Hawk. Wow. That was so good. You're so good at writing. Oh, my God. Thank you very much. Yes. Beautiful intro. And Sue, it's so wonderful to see you. And I'm so excited that you're here. I am. It's wonderful to be here and with you guys. And so the story is, yeah, I left in 05.

[00:07:44] The door, you know what I mean? It was like, actually, we'll just get in that right away so we can get out of the way. When I was on Survivor 1, I was like, oh, my God, I can't win this. I'm too rough for these youngsters, okay? They're not going to like me all that much. But they'll really like Kelly. Kelly. So me and Kelly actually formed an alliance way before Richard came even to us. Mr. I made the alliance. No, you didn't. Whereas we made the friendship, which is basically alliance.

[00:08:12] So we made this alliance. We'd never vote against each other. And then I even told Kelly, I said, girlfriend, I said, in the end, I said, this is perfect. I said, we'll get Richard. It'll be me, you and Richard. Chances are he's not going to lose the win in the last challenge. We'll vote him out. Just stop on him like a bug and he will lose his mind. And it'd be fabulous. And I said, you're going to sit up there and you'll win.

[00:08:40] You'll win over me because we knew who was all going to be in the jury at that point. Well, of course, then that game is wild. It's like it's like at the end, especially with thirty nine days at the end, because you all know that your mind is racing and you're like, you got this paranoid thing going on. And Kelly got super paranoid. And Richard, of course, took took took her, you know, like, oh, that's opening for me. She was vulnerable.

[00:09:08] So he started whispering in her ear, you know, oh, Kelly, you'll do so much better with me sitting there. Little did Kelly know by her burning me was the one vote that helped Richard win. And and it was like, I can't believe that speech. Everything like worked out the way I said it was so judicial. I'm not a jury. You know what I mean? I'm not a lawyer. I'm the jury. I'm the I get to say what I want. And it wasn't being a sore.

[00:09:35] I never thought I would win that million bucks. So it was being shafted by the friend. So then in the end, we go on the all stars and we're playing and I'm just pretty much ignoring Richard and Richard. They I don't know how come they they had to learn as they go. There are a bunch of youngsters still doing a show on the all stars. They really were. I was still early in the thing and how they let him just be butt ass naked for that challenge is beyond me.

[00:10:03] And that Richard thought he had to do that to try because he's a he's a guy that walks in the rooms got the biggest voice and the biggest and I'm here and everybody pay attention to me whatever. And that happened. And and they wouldn't acknowledge it at all. They wouldn't talk to me. They wouldn't do not. They were just like, oh, the next when we hit the beach the next day. Oh, Richard got voted out like, oh, that's going to be good for her. You people. I got feelings, too. I got I got. You know what? I'm a person. I'm a person, not just a number on your little cardboard.

[00:10:33] And so that's why I walked away. But hindsight. I actually in the end squashed him with my one vote because mind you, I don't have a lot of friends. I got just a handful of close friends. Older you get the less you get, but the closer they get. But I had a lot. We had 50 million like T-Bird said on the last show. I had super fans, super, super fans. You know what I mean?

[00:11:02] And I believe some of these super, super fans were in powers of position with the state. And all I can say is he got stopped. IRS in prison over with done taking care of. But you got to watch what you what you you know, you you reap what you sow, buddy. And there you go. So I was like, oh, my God, it worked out better. Just I hate to be like, I don't want to wish bad things on anybody.

[00:11:32] But my God, it was like, oh, my God, you get a watch what you do. So you just, you know, make sure when they hand you that check. Right, Rob. Right. Make sure when they hand you pay your taxes. Right. It was it was pure karma. It was pure karma. And you know what? There are no coincidence in this life. None. This is all pre-planned. Yeah. What a Sue Hawk monologue open opening everything. So that's so we got that off. We got that off.

[00:12:00] So I got to ask now. So you guys like I watch I hadn't watched Survivor then I I'm sorry. I work. I work a lot. I like it. I'm okay with working a lot. I enjoy what I do. I'm in zone when I'm driving my truck, even if the traffic jacked up. I'm still you got to be in zone. Anyways, I was thinking about this because I watched 49. I watched 49. And I was like, and I was like, oh, my God, look at all these idols and this and that. I'm like, I can't keep track of this.

[00:12:29] And then I watched 49. So then that kind of like prep me to watch 50 because I was like, wow, 50 is coming up. I got I got to see, you know, 25 years or whatever this is and see how it plays out. And then I kept on 49. I kept turning to Tim because we would have to watch it like on the computer because they don't put it up for a couple of weeks. You know, each episode they like to milk it out. And I don't have like I have zero paid TV. I don't watch TV. I never was a TV watcher. Yeah.

[00:12:59] And I only watched myself on the show once. And that was like I come home Wednesdays. I couldn't watch myself live. No, or whatever. I'd have to because it's summer, man. You're you're working. You're I was throwing mud. I was running concrete truck then. And it's Wisconsin. You got to get things in the summer because come winter, you ain't doing jack. So I come home and Tim would record it. That was the only recording device we ever bought. And he recorded. Then we'd sit there and watch it on a Saturday or Sunday.

[00:13:27] And we'd be like, oh, my God, we'd be laughing. We'd be laughing at me because I, you know, I'm not. I'm just like happy. Let's. But anyways. So I kept turning to him. I said, how many days are they doing this? He said, 26. I said, and I can't ever make how many days. He said, I'm like, 26 days. Oh, my God. So I decided. Yeah, they call this. They're going to call the new one survivor. New error or something. Yeah. No. So call it.

[00:13:58] Call it. You know, softballs. Let's call it survivor softballs because that's what they are. They I'm sorry. And then all these clothes they got. What are we getting all these clothes? And these clothes are like shirts that are like blankets. And then they're going to sleep at night with hoodies on. With hoodies. I mean, my God, look at Teresa went through an Africa. Oh, my God. It was just.

[00:14:25] And we like you said, we were like the rain and the cold and sand fleas. The sand fleas are so bad. Well, you all know about how Colleen had bug eggs in her legs. Right. Yeah. I mean, she had like all these bite marks and everything. Was it was it what we saw? Oh, it was so bad. So these things are biting us up. And then while we're sleeping, it's so bad. You're scratching your legs in your sleep.

[00:14:53] And we would literally wake up with blood all over our hands. I am not kidding you. And the doctor is like doing nothing. So then after about like 10 days of this, 10 days of pure torture, because they really affected the girls, because I think the guys had more hair on their legs and thicker hair. So the sand fleas didn't bite them like that. Anyways, you finally come up and he's like, hey, I got I got this pill for you all. It'll stop the itching. And it's like the size of a number two lead pencil head.

[00:15:20] And we're like, where were you when we really needed this? He was. Where were you? They didn't know they want to, you know, see how far they can torture the people. And then I watch now and I'm like, I got hit with that stingray. We didn't know that if you peed on your stingray, it would draw it out right away. Like the one chick did that. The guy got hit with the urchin, which is worse than a stingray. You know, and I think her name was Kathy. Yeah. Yeah. Pete on it, which is so smart. And I didn't.

[00:15:50] And so then I'm sitting out there getting more shots of penicillin and the doctor was like, Hey, this ain't working that good. We're gonna have to wrap you up and keep it dry because you know, you got 200 blood veins in your hand. If that infection goes into one of those blood veins, it's going to go immediately brain. And we're going to have to airlift you to the hospital. And you're lucky if you'll survive. I stayed in the game. They kept me. I didn't. I'm like, okay, whatever. This is where I die. Die. You know, I'm going to die standing happy.

[00:16:21] Yeah. So what was the reason why you started watching survivor 49 after all this time? Well, I didn't watch it because I was just too busy and I don't watch TV. But why did you come back? Why did you start watching it again? Why did I start coming back is I don't know what brought me back. I think I was getting ready for 50 because they're already they had 49 goal was going to go. Got it. And then they started very started hyping up the 50.

[00:16:49] I'm like, yeah, I'm like, oh, 25 years. Wow. So I'm like, I watch 50. I got to watch 50 because I knew they bring back a bunch of old players, which course I'm watching these people. I'm like, who's this? You know, but I had no idea. I'm most of them like like I had to check the stuff out after I watched them. Like, who are they? Were they? You know, I didn't I didn't Google them that hard or figure that much out. But yeah, yeah, it was fun.

[00:17:17] So so what did you think about Jenna being out there for 50? You know, when somebody made that comment, she's just standing there like a statue. I was like, I think Colby made it. Colby, Colby was so funny. He's like, she just stands there like a statue. And I was like, oh, my God, this is that's exactly right. It's that's, you know, boring. Like, I don't think she should have been there. Well, I really don't. So so I'm interested.

[00:17:47] You called her you nicknamed her speedball in Borneo. You call her speedball. Where did she get that nickname? Because speed. Oh, Jenna. Oh, Jenna Lewis. I was thinking Genevieve. Oh, Jenna Lewis. Jenna Lewis. Well, she's exactly Jenna. She is. She's she's jacked up all the time. She's. And doesn't think cohesively as we watched her on number one on this. Get the first one.

[00:18:17] I mean, that's that's a worse. I would think like you go out there and you would. That was to be the one position you would want. She's flapping her mouth right away. People are people. Nowadays, they're just so like, oh, I got to have the camera on me. I got to be saying this mouth fit and that mouth fit. I got to I'm going to make it. No, you're not going to make it. And you know, you're going to make a little but it's Hollywood. And you know what? When the first survivor came along and I don't blame the actors and the writers for hating us.

[00:18:46] I mean, I would hate if I was in their position. I would have hated us, too. I mean, we bypassed the unions and they got this and we're basically cheap labor for them. And but everybody, you know, they're like, oh, these people are falling in love with all these regular people. And and we've worked our whole life to do what we're doing, you know, and and and so even now. So now, but so I don't blame them for hating us. I was like that. We ain't making it. They think we're shunned.

[00:19:16] Take me from let's start back at the very beginning when you applied. I guess the applications came out in 1999. And, you know, right away you did your video, which was Gilligan Islands themed, which was really cute of those. You can look at the Internet and find it. What gave you that idea? I mean, did Tim help you with that? Of course, Tim is this is. Yeah, Tim did. But see, so this application was huge. And and like this house, like non computer I am.

[00:19:47] So Tim's doing real estate and he's not good with a computer. But the queen in the office, I forget her name. She was so sweet. I said, have her download this application from Survivor. I gave him all the information she downloaded. It was like, I don't know, three pages long. But one of the questions was, what character of Gilligan's Island are you? And I grew up watching Gilligan's Island. I mean, that was my show. It's Gilligan's Island. Leave it to Beaver, you know.

[00:20:15] Wo gibt's eigentlich die weißen Rosen aus Athen? Und wo regnet's für mich nochmal rote Rosen? Natürlich im Europa-Rosarium Sangerhausen mit der größten Rosensammlung der Welt. Viele tausend Rosenarten warten auf Sie mit prachtvollen Blüten und herrlichem Duft. B-B-B-B-O-S-A-Y-O-M-D-E. But so I, um, I was like, I turned to Tim. I said, well, I'm like everybody but the house. Cause money, money's money.

[00:20:44] You know, I'm just like, if I can pay the bills, hey, cool. And I'm healthy. Better yet. I'm way ahead of anybody with a bunch of money and unhealthy. So I said, uh, I said, I'm like everyone. So we're doing it. So we're sitting in Tim. We had a pretty chill house then on a little lake and we're sitting there chilling before going to bed. And I said, uh, and he'll come up with a song now that he'll pull a song out of his ass.

[00:21:11] So I said, you got to come up with a song for me for this survivor thing. They show a little bit of that song. The song was huge and it was funny. And he said, he sat there. Okay. We had a hot tub and, uh, he was sitting in the hot tub. We had, you know, patio doors open. He said, he said, it took, he said, I think I went to bed at like eight o'clock or eight 30. Cause I got up at like two 30 at that time. Start today. And, uh, he said, 11 o'clock, he got the, he got the, um, hook line.

[00:21:41] And once he got the hook line, he was able to write the song. So we did this song. So you can see me doing the song. Like I don't memorize anything. So it's on cardboard. My eyes are flashing. I got all of our mouths behind me. Like, Hey, I'm a big hunter man, which I really am. And, uh, so then, but then I was like, it's gotta be, we're like, what's three minutes. We've got three minutes. We're like, okay. I said, okay, I'll tell you what we'll come up. I'll do addresses each of those one characters. I'm in Gilligan Island. We'll write one line for it. One little line.

[00:22:11] And he wrote the lines. Um, and I had whipped together whatever I had in the house. I didn't go buy anything special for what I had to do. And now that in the morning where we're going to tape this Saturday morning. And I, now I worked off all wig, busted my balls, you know, working 55 hours, 58 hours and six, five days and our home, our back door. So I said, okay, we're going to do the tape. And he's like, okay, I've got the tape. So he does the song. And then we're going, and he's like, hurry up. Hurry up.

[00:22:40] I gotta go show house. I got a house showing. So the tape wasn't even like maybe two minutes long. And, uh, we, so that night we actually take the tape over by his boss. Cause we had dinner over there. His, his aunt was a fabulous cook. She was Italian. She's so good. She said, come over for dinner y'all. So we took the tape and we threw it in. And how he looked at the tape and he turned to me, he said, you're going to be a superstar. I said, shut up, Holly. And, uh, so it just went from there. It just went from there.

[00:23:09] And I basically, when you went out, you know, to the green tree, it was fun. I was like, all I really wanted, really wanted out of this was a vacation out of the cold. Because they were like, Oh, this is in March, April. Oh, it can be nasty up there in Wisconsin, March and April. And I don't, oh, I want it was a vacation. And so in January. I got called out. They called me like you're coming out to California. And I was going to be out there nine days. So I was like in the first herd that came out. And I stayed there for nine days.

[00:23:37] It's out there on Venice, just by Venice beach. And I never been to California and I needed. And I was like, well, hell, I got my vacation. I don't care. You know? And, uh, the biggest thing I probably got. So then you're like stuck there and you're checking these people out. And I see Jenna there and she's hanging out with a brother. Cause she's just so, you know, has to have somebody with her all the time. And I didn't remember who else I saw. I don't remember.

[00:24:06] I seen some other people like, Oh God, I hope they don't end up on. If I ended up on the island, I hope they're not there because I can just tell they're just. A bitch. And, um, so, so we're doing that. And then, uh, so they got that final interview. Did you guys do that? Where they at night, they, they bring in for the final interview and they got all the directors and all the producers sitting around. You remember that one? Okay. So this lady that was in charge of like kind of the controller, you know, she was like

[00:24:33] the, she'd tell you where to be, blah, blah, blah. And she tells me, come down to the presidential suite, this number suite at like nine o'clock at night. I'm like, okay. So I get all jacked. I'm like, Ooh, nine o'clock at night. I go down there and I'm standing by the door. And up comes this little chick with like a cashmere pink sweater on. Like, Hey, like Miss cheerleader, you know, she would have been the Jenna in our in thing

[00:25:02] or the Colleen and she didn't make it on, but she's, she comes up next to me. And this lady opens the door and this lady did not like me. She didn't like me at all, which is fine. You don't have to like me. I don't like you either. We're just, we're working together here. We're doing, this is a job. And, uh, she says to me, she goes, what are you doing here? I said, you told me to come at nine. Oh no, no, no, no. That was wrong. You just go back to your room and we'll call you when we want. Yeah. No, I'm okay.

[00:25:31] That was the last, that was the last straw. You don't treat me like a piece of dirt. Okay. Yeah. Don't the way she said it. So I go back to the room two o'clock. They call me. I'm fucking pissed. Excuse me. I don't want to swear on this. I really don't. So I am mad. I am so mad. I just throw on some jeans, no shoes. 2am. They call you 2am, 2am, 2am. No, I got a sleeveless guys like V neck t-shirt on. I don't care.

[00:26:01] I got my vacation. I really don't care. And you people don't impress me. I don't care who you are or how much money you are because that's the way I've gone through life. And we sit down and they started asking me these questions and they could tell like I didn't care. And they're flipping out and laughing and like, oh my God. And, and then I was like, finally, you know, it's, it's like crazy. I don't know if I told them, Hey, I got to go or, or something like that. Like I got to get out of here.

[00:26:29] And I did the same thing on the first interview that I had when I had to go up to Green Bay, Wisconsin. So the whole time I'm going to my look, my boss, she's so sweet. And I'm still friends with them to this day. I said, I said, it was a husband and wife, a small business owned small business trucking company. And when I went to Green Bay, I said, I said, I need the day off. I said, I'm gonna go apply for a part-time job. And they asked me what it was about. And they started laughing. They're like, good luck on getting that part-time job.

[00:26:59] They're so, so supportive. Like they treat their drivers almost like their kids. And, uh, so I go and I do the interview. I'm watching these people and I'm kind of nervous on this. And I'm watching these people go in and out of the room. Like, bam, they go in, they're out in five minutes, go in, they're out in five minutes, 10 minutes. You know, I'm like, Oh, geez. So I go in. I was in there. I bet you an hour, an hour, an hour. We couldn't stop laughing. They're asking me these crazy questions.

[00:27:26] I come and I see not watching a lot of TV. I listen to a lot of radio. I use my own self imagination for my life. And for what I'm listening to it's, it's kind of, it's a good brain exercise. Anyway, so we're laughing. And I finally told them, I said, guys, I said, I got to get out of here. You got a whole bunch of more people. Do you got to interview? You know? And I would kill, I would kill to this day to see that interview on tape full blown. And the whole thing is it was so, so good.

[00:27:56] And so funny. So that part of it was, it was fun. It was fun getting, you know, going. And then the doctor, the doctor, the psych, the doctor's like, Oh, we did a psych test on you. I'd like to know what they said about you guys. So they do a psych test. And he goes, you're a high school dropout and a drinker. I'm like, you're way off. I graduated high school because my mother was mean and she made me. Thank God. And I don't drink. I hate alcohol. I'm actually like allergic to it.

[00:28:25] So he was all like off the money. But the one thing he was on the money was zero. You're like a John Wayne. I was like, yeah, true grit. That was a good movie. Yeah. So anyways. Yeah. Do you remember if Mark Burnett, do you remember if he, him and Jeff Probst? I'm sure they were. But did you, did you, I mean, at the time you wouldn't have known who they were because you were the first season, but did they stick out at all after the fact, after you got out of the island?

[00:28:55] Did you remember they were there? Oh yeah. Well, I knew they were there, you know, talking, cause it was in the book. Mark Burnett wrote a book about the first survivor, I believe. Right. Yeah. So I can say this. So we're sitting there. We're it's. We don't, you never seen Mark. You see it actually Mark Burnett would show up at some of the challenges and chat with the people a little bit. And I think that was just to help calm them or keep them upbeat. You know what I mean? Even though we were upbeat, we were like wild.

[00:29:25] Thank God we didn't have such a regiment schedule like they do now. Like now it's like, oh, you got tree mail. You and you go check tree mail. You know, we're like, we'd be sitting there like bored. Okay. Let's go see if there's tree mail. And they'd come back there. I've, you know, tree mail. So it, you know, but he would be there at the challenges. Uh, Jeff would come in and if we were doing challenges and they give us a heads up on the rules and the regs, he'd come in and talk about that. Jeff disappointed me on a couple of things.

[00:29:54] Like he's like, oh, the spear is only going to be 15 yards away. So I was practicing at 15 yards. We get to the spear throwing. I just now I never practiced running, throwing the spirit because I didn't have to, because I could hit the bullseye at 15 yards standing there. Now it's 30 yards away. I'm like, you're a jerk. You're a jerk. Oh God. He, he irritated me with, you know, not sticking to the, he likes to go out. He can do whatever he wants. Why don't change the rules right now? You can't, there's only a few rules. You can't hit anybody.

[00:30:23] You can't split money. And I don't know if there's another one, but, uh, yeah, he can, he can change rules as he goes. Of course we didn't know that on the first one. Well, Sue, I thought they had changed the rules at the end, not really changed the rules, but I thought Mark Burnett had said, this is going to be just like the jury where you ask a question. And then I believe you approached Mark and said, well, I don't have a question. I just want to make a statement.

[00:30:52] And so they're kind of thinking, well, I think he changed it. And I think Jeff then said, um, you can either ask a question or make a statement. And so then there you were. Yeah, I did. You know, it was funny because you're like, so I was 37 days starved. Like these people are like freaking out if they're starved for two days. Anyways, I'm like 37 days, which really I'm a low maintenance.

[00:31:18] I'm I, no matter how hard I work my metabolism, burn slow because I got a really low heart rate to like resting rate. Like the doctors will freak out. Like if I'm going for a heart rate test, I'll actually pound my foot up and down to keep it up a little bit. Cause I can sink it down low and I've done it on purpose just to freak people out. I don't know why, probably because I've been working since I was three years old and haven't stopped. So anyway, my dad, my dad was so funny. He's like my allowance.

[00:31:47] My allowance was this. When the work's done, you can go play. That was my allowance growing up my whole life. So, you know, you'd work your tail off fast. So you go play. So anyways, uh, so I'm get off. Now I had quit smoking six weeks prior. I was, I've quit years ago now. Yeah. I don't smoke no more. Thank God. It was like the hardest thing I ever did in my life. I think I quit 12 times before I finally quit.

[00:32:15] But, um, so I quit smoking for six weeks. Cause I could back then if I wanted to quit for a while, I could quit. And when it wasn't big deal. And I quit drinking coffee. Cause I was an avid coffee drinker back then too. I only drink like one or two cups a day now, but. I went to black tea, which is not even any better. And, uh, so we get off the island and they got food foods like, uh, slept that night. Slept really good.

[00:32:44] Actually slept really good. And, uh, woke up and I found the little, we were on our island. We didn't realize that we thought these were park rangers, but these are actually soldiers. Protecting this island because it's a hot spot. And, uh, so they had their little cabin and their big porch, you know, because it's Malaysia. You know how that is out in the jungles. You all know that from being in the Amazon and stuff. And, uh, up on their front porch, they had their coffee pot with their coffee.

[00:33:13] And they, oh my God. And they put real cream in like, this is probably so organic cream, real cream and raw sugar. They didn't eat this homogenized sugar that people eat nowadays. So that raw sugar. So I started, I hooked on to that, that coffee. It tastes like hot chocolate. I swear to God, and started smoking my Marlboro reds. And I did that for two days straight. And that was when you wrote the speech. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was like.

[00:33:42] I really didn't have no questions for him. I knew exactly what went down and what happened. And so I was like, give me some paper. So these guys bring back, they bring back a whole pad, a whole container of paper that you put in a copy machine. Yeah. But I wrote, I'd go off and I'd write, write, write. And people were like, and I'd go away from everybody. You know, I'm not, I'm not, I didn't care for a lot of those people. Like the ones that I ended up with the end to, I did, but I wasn't going to get tight with them.

[00:34:10] Like I really liked Greg and Colleen. Actually really like Greg. He's he didn't, he came off on camera one way, but if you got him on the side, he's super intelligent, super nice guy. Me and him would talk, we'd be walking to tribal council and we'd be at the back end of the line talking about cars. And, and cause he could talk about anything and talking about cars. And that was weird because that jungle was very weird because then they're a channel.

[00:34:37] And then we'd be way back at the far end and the people one or two in the very front would holler back to us. What'd you say? Did you call me? And we're like, no. No. And we didn't think none of it till there was this challenge. Jeff gave about talking about the island and how it would take your name that the spirits would take your name and, and, and actually play games with you and, and say your name to yourself. And yes.

[00:35:05] And me and Greg were like, when that went down, we're like, Oh shit. We see that happen. You know, that stuff is real. Sue, I never knew you liked Greg. I feel like in the clips I was watching, uh, you would call him psychotic. And he was, but you got them away from the kids. That's, you know, but that was that, you know, I guess some people did go out there for the cameras. I did.

[00:35:31] So I didn't get that, but, uh, um, no, super nice kid. Like he would have made, I don't know what he's doing now, but he should have gone into being like a herbalist. He really should have. He is so smart. He'd be like the most homopathic rated doctor in the United States right now. If that's what he went into. Cause he was just that. Oh yeah. The dude was his, his IQ is probably off the roof. I'm sure he was probably one of the most highest IQ people that's ever played survivor.

[00:36:01] Probably to this day. Of course, they're not going to tell you that. No, uh, you talk about how you wrote and you wrote and you wrote the speech and you were drinking all the coffee. How did you memorize it? It seemed like that. Oh God. Oh no, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know because we, so, so long story short, I write, I write, it's actually a full page. It's tiny, tiny writing front and back on this paper. Okay. And I put it in my pocket. I'm like, ah, ah, and I'm like, it's in my pocket.

[00:36:30] I'm like, God, I can't, I can't, I can't pull this out and read it. I'm just, but if you watch me, I'm very slow. And you can see my head spinning. So my husband said, equated it to, he goes, all you did really, he goes, that was just like the final sales pitch is what you did. And probably being around him being a salesman, but some of that's hooked on to me.

[00:36:57] But if you look at what I wrote, I outlined, I, that was a final outline. That was the final cut was that moment. And it was probably better that way. Yeah. I mean, I, I was so, I was like, I'm going to, I got to cover my bases here. And, and it was very, I thought it was good. It was very judicial and knowledgeable. And, uh, all these people that are like, Oh, she's a sore loser. No, I don't care.

[00:37:25] I still really don't care about, you know, this is how bad I don't care about. So I came home. So I'm running nights now up in, I was living up in, I lived up in Missouri for 10 years. Loved it. But the floods chased me out down between Springfield and Branson, right on a crane Creek, man. And the floods were hurt. We went through the, what, you know, that Texas is going through now back to back. I went through that up there. Oh, Jesus Christ. Until you've been through a flood, you can't even think of it.

[00:37:54] So, um, but I'm down in Missouri and I'm running line hall nights and I'm right. And you're running line all nights. You're driving. This is before we had the electronic logs, we're running log books. So we run 11, 12 hours at night, uh, driving. And I listened to a lot of, um, AM radio and stuff. And what, Oh, I got sidetracked on this. Remind me where I was going on it. So you, we were talking about this, the speech. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 2010, 2010, 2010. Okay.

[00:38:21] So, so that night I listened, I'm listening to each coast because now you don't, I don't have serious radio and you don't have your phones with podcasts yet or anything yet. Right. And I come, I come home to my husband and I said, Hey, and we had the money. I said, I'm going to take a thousand dollars. I want to buy this Bitcoin. Okay. My husband, my husband says, no, that's stupid. And I didn't want to argue with him. And I was like, you know, and it wouldn't have been easy for me to buy it. Cause I would have had to go find somebody to figure out how to buy it.

[00:38:50] So it wouldn't have been that easy of a step, but I wanted to buy a thousand dollars of Bitcoin in 2010. So it had to like in 2019, I just turned to him. I said, there you go. I said, get your ass back to work. I would have been, you know, so hindsight. So, so it's not like I got super mad at him. I just, I, but when he brings it up, when he talks about, I'm like, don't even talk about it. Don't even talk about it. Don't even go down about it. So yeah, you learn a lot.

[00:39:20] Yeah. Driving short, played it. Yeah, I bet. Um, do you realize that they've done all these lists of like the greatest moment in, survivor and almost every single one is your speech at the end of the first survivor is the greatest moment in survivor history in 25 years and 50 seasons. It'll never able because it was, it was, I went into the game.

[00:39:48] I'm there's nobody else like me. I don't want to pat myself on the back, but how many of these people were raised in government schools that had hot lunches and all this and that. I was raised in my grade school. Let's just get an idea this way. Maybe you can fan them a little bit of where I come from. I was my folks. We've started in the city. We had the tiniest house. It was so cute, but my dad, my, see, I get a lot of this from my father too.

[00:40:17] And my father's got a weird backstory. Um, so anyway, and my mother, they're both farm kids. They're both raised on dairy farms. So my dad's an excellent mechanic. He goes in the Korean war. He wrenches on the big old cargo planes and, uh, he comes back. And actually he had a friend that had dragster in, uh, he was in Hawaii and they had a buddy, his Hawaiian friend had a dragster and they would test run it at night out on the runways.

[00:40:48] Um, that's where I get my speed freak out of, but so he's working for the, uh, Ford dealership just down the road from our house. He doesn't even, he can walk to work. He got in a, he was there about three years now, three, three years, maybe four. And he's got three little kids at home. My, uh, three first three siblings are back to back to back to back. I was the third and five, but I had two older brothers and he got in a piss and match with the boss.

[00:41:15] And next thing, you know, he quit his job and he went at least the old Enco station. You wouldn't probably remember that name gas station Enco, but, uh, at least old get Enco station and went, went off to work for himself. So in the meantime, then things went pretty good. He moved us out to the country. We moved out to the country, which was kind of, it was like our neighbors. I had a neighbor across the street. We weren't like miles apart, but it was cool because you knew all your neighbors, you

[00:41:43] knew all the neighbor kids, the neighbor kids, the neighbors, parents would discipline us if we were being bad. Um, and my schools now, this is a deal. I had, I went to three room classrooms. The first school was first grade, second grade and fifth grade. They put the fifth graders there kind of help keep the little kids. You know, I don't know. It would made sense instead of first, second, third. Well, that was about one mile down the road from my house. So that's where I went.

[00:42:11] And when I had fifth grade there, I actually had finally got my pony that I cried for like a month again, because everybody else had horses. I wanted a pony finally got my pony. I would literally fifth grade, ride my bike to school because at lunch while the other kids were hanging out and having lunch, I would jump on my bike, ride at home, check on my pony, spend like 10 minutes to eat lunch. That's probably why I'm not a foodie to this day.

[00:42:39] And then right back to school and be back to school before the half hour lunch was up. And then the other school was the second, third and sixth grade. And that was only three rooms. And our library was in our classroom along the very bottom of the windows. That's where our library was. And we were taught by the neighborhood ladies like my third grade. My was my third grade. Yeah. Third grade teacher was a sheep farmer that lived up the road.

[00:43:06] Turns out my fifth grade teacher was actually the mother to that mom and pa trucking company. I went to work for a bud mom was this jasky. So, so I grew up in a completely like the last of the good days where people were, you know, character was made and hard work was recognized and, you know, and you had to figure things out for yourself.

[00:43:33] I didn't, my mom, I hope your parents did this to you. You screwed it up. You figure it out. Or I don't have time to help you. You figure it out. That was the greatest thing you could ever do for a kid. Greatest thing. So yeah, that's right. That's yeah, that's where I come from. So, but yeah, to be, it's kind of cool, actually. But you know, so this is weird. And so we're talking about this. Okay, I got to get my feet off that. Okay, so the year before we go on survival.

[00:44:04] Okay, there's moments. I mean, I've been married for years, but there's times like if I had, if I could choke my husband, I would have. So he says to me or just slap them upside the head really hard because it's like, what are you doing? So, and I'm sure he said the same about me. So we get, we have that. We get married. We don't buy a house. We buy a rundown camp up in the Canadian bush. Revive it. I realize the Canadian government is crazy and control freaks back then.

[00:44:33] And this is 87 to 93 that we own the camp. And it worked out great. We actually sold the camp to some Canadian kids that were like the same age as us. And to this day, they still own that camp. It was the greatest camp because it was a rare camp because we actually own the three acres of camp was on. We own a mile up and a mile down the mineral rights, which is kind of weird. And it had a beach. It was beautiful, beautiful camp. And they're still there and they raise their family there. And I hope their kids take it over.

[00:45:02] So anyways, we come back 93. And we're home about a year. Now we did all this bear hunt. And I went, I hunted two bears while I was up there. And after I shot my second bear, I said, I can't shoot no more bears. I'm like, because you skin a bear out. This is weird. You skin a bear. If you skin a bear out and cut them off at the head, he looks just like a human being, like a bodybuilder. It's kind of creepy. And they're so cool. And they're so funny. And each one's got personalities.

[00:45:32] And we, we had to manage our own barrier area. So we'd like make up names for bears in different areas. And we'd bait them accordingly. Cause if we knew there were mother and cubs there, we, we'd bait them to keep them there. So they wouldn't go wandering off to somebody else's area and get shot. And we did a good job. We guaranteed a shot. We didn't over hunt, but I shot too. I shot one with the gun and one with the ball. And I'm like, I'm done. And, uh, we come back. And Tim now in the meantime had all the chance in the world to hunt a bear up there, but he was always involved with the hunters. He, he'd take them out.

[00:46:02] Like, it's really like you timed everything when the hunters were coming close to coming. You took the bait in the woods about the same time. You're going to take the hunter out there. So you're training the bear, you know, to make this easier. Well, long story straight. He never has a bear. So we come back a year later. He says, uh, I want to hunt a bear. I'm like, really? Why? Why didn't you hunt a bear? Well, I want, I want to have a brown bear. Okay. I said, what are you thinking about?

[00:46:30] Well, he says, uh, now remember Russia fell on 91. Okay. So the Soviet union dissolved. And he says, uh, now Russia ain't been hunted all these years. The Russian, the Kodiak bear and the Russian brown bear are the same species. They are, they're coastal. They live on fish. They're, they're huge. So Tim says, well, they're shooting. All the big ones have been shot up in Alaska.

[00:46:59] There isn't many big ones left, but Russia's wide open and they're shooting huge brown bears. And I'm like, okay. Okay. And then he's like, tells me how much it's going to cost. I said, okay. I said, well, let's figure it out. We started saving the money. So by 99, the money was the trip was planned way ahead, but we knew we wouldn't in 98. I think we put the money out for it. We'd saved the money for the trip. Tim to buy to do his bear hunt.

[00:47:26] Now, none of his buddies had enough money or a gun to go over to Russia with him. So I, so the, the tag along, if you take somebody along was only like 3,500 bucks for the Russian part of it. I'm like, okay. I said, I'll go with you. We'll just find somebody to watch the dogs. I, I think we moved his mom into the house where we were gone to watch the dogs and I'll go with you and you can go bear hunt and we'll do it.

[00:47:53] And I'm like, God, it was the wildest trip. I can't, I can't do it. They said, Oh, you're going to go in with a helicopter. Once you fly from Alaska to Kamchatka. I know the front half of the plane is passenger plane. Now I'm on a passenger plane with guys that own like factories that make gate spells and stuff like that. We're just a bunch of dumb ass rednecks, you know, poor, poor kids that just saved their money. Okay.

[00:48:20] So then in the back half is actually, um, like, you know, packages and stuff like that. So we get over there and this, so they tell us now this is, it started out crazy ass right off the bat, right off the bat. You go into this, like building. That's like a pole barn. Like I've seen nicer pole barns and horse stables. And it's only the size of like 1500 square feet is their entry into Russia there. But there's guards there with AK 47s. I mean, these guys are serious.

[00:48:49] And so the guy told Tim, he said, when they give you all these things, what to do and what not to do, do not put your bullets in with your gun in your gun case. What's a habit. It's a habit for hunters to put their bullets in with their gun case. Yeah. If they're there, they're working in there, keeping dry. Tim puts his bullets. So when they open up his gun case, his bullets are sitting there wide open. The guy that's now the guy, Victor, I'll never forget his, I don't know his last name because they're all, but Victor was in charge of these hunters coming over and watching,

[00:49:18] getting them through the customs onto the boss that would take them to the hair helicopter airport. Victor took the gun case and supposedly he used to be the head of the KGB in Kamchatka. Okay. Remember they just had a big ass earthquake there a year or so ago. Yeah. Yeah. And Kamchatka. So Victor takes, takes the case and slams it down on the guy's hands. And I'm like, Oh my God. So that started it.

[00:49:47] We get on the little boss and it's wild because this is 99 now. So they've had eight years of like some semi freedom. Cause basically what was running on them was a mafia, which I'm fine with because you know, I just don't piss them off. So we're going down and you see their apartment buildings are like what we consider warehouses with windows, but they were like seven stories up, just concrete walls. Some would be painted like yellow and pink. And then some are still that Soviet green.

[00:50:15] So it was like, it's seen them come out of this transformation as wild. So we get to the helicopter airport and me and Tim are like getting off the bus and we're got our stuff. And they, this guy comes up to us and takes his arm and puts it in front of us. You guys are going, you're going somewhere else. And I'm like, and you don't hardly. So I spent a year in the truck playing a tape, trying to learn Russian.

[00:50:40] And I learned like 10 words in the end, but I remember Hiroshio was good. You know, like, yes. So I learned that's about all I could do. I'm not a language learner. So we're like, oh my God. So we get in the back of this little truck and their trucks, you think these trucks are little, like they're really little. So we're in the back where shoved in this guy, this Russian guys, he's all he said was interpreter, interpreter. We're going to go to our church. So he goes to house, he gets his package. And Tim, of course, has got going off like, oh my God, they're taking us away.

[00:51:10] They're going to kill us. They're going to take your passport. You're going to go into, they're going to make you a sex slave. And he's like freaking my brain out. So we ended up at an apartment building. Then Victor's daughter who's 16, well-educated, spoke English, come out of the apartment building and she sat in the front seat next to the driver. Cause we were in the backseat. It was like a crew cab, little truck. And she started telling us what was going on. And she says, she says, you're going to go on a snowmobile.

[00:51:39] You're going to go to a snowmobile camp, which means you're going to go over rivers. There's so much snow there in the winter. You literally go over snow bridges to get into this camp on the snowmobiles. We're like, okay. She goes, but you can't go until tomorrow because they're bringing the other hunters that were up at this camp out tomorrow. We're going to meet them back at the airport. And then your guys will go with them and they'll take you in on the snowmobiles. But in the meantime, they didn't want to keep me in the city because it's so dangerous now because it is run by the mafia.

[00:52:05] My passport was worth like $30,000 back in 99. So they took us out. I'm not kidding you to a brothel. And these people are so smart. They got these concrete swimming pools. They, now this place has got, it's got all these rooms and the lady at the brothel, the head mistress, all she could say was a few words in English, but could she say University of South Carolina? Because she was working so hard and making such good money that she was putting her kid through college in America.

[00:52:34] You know what I mean? America still rocks. So they, so they, they got this. Now we don't really, it's dark. It's at night. So we go in this room and it's wild because you got the velvet wallpaper, the lumpy bed, you got the sink that's pink, you got the toilet. That's the lime green. Like these people just grab whatever they can to make things work. And they're happy with it. And we could hear the girls out in the room at night, giggling and laughing and all this stuff.

[00:53:04] So then in the morning we woke up and they fed us like Kings. Like I had caviar for the first time and they were fish and it was like wild. So then they showed, then she showed me a tour of the brothel and it's these, they had two huge concrete pools. They weren't painted, but you know how they ran this year round is because that's a fire and ice up there. They literally pumped that, uh, thermal, uh, thermal, uh, thermal water, the warm water from

[00:53:33] the volcanoes underground. Okay. They'd pump, they pumped that into the pool and what they do. So they really didn't have chemicals or anything. It was a continuous pump through. It would just keep coming through and going out, coming through and going out. So they swam in warm swimming pools when it was like zero degrees out there in Siberia. And it was wild because, but because then this lady, so we're hanging out, hanging out all day and she could tell we were getting bored. So she's like, she told me enough. She says, you want to go see my greenhouse? I was like, yeah.

[00:54:03] Like how do these people survive in the middle of winter? They, cause all they got is these little carts by the apartment buildings that would sell little provisions of food and stuff, not much. And she took me to the greenhouse, which I'm sure I I'm assuming now is probably a community greenhouse. They made it with two by fours and plastic and they were growing a lot of beets in there. They, they live on a lot of beets and cabbage. And, and cause they're easy grows. They're just easy grows.

[00:54:30] And they would pump the warm water into this greenhouse of water, these plants, and that would warm the greenhouse. And we walk in the greenhouse. It's like, Oh my God, it's hot here. We've had parkas and stuff. So I was like, Oh, this is wild. And this is so smart. These people are so smart. So then we're like, it's going to go back to the brothel. So, cause this is like a couple miles away from the brothel. And, uh, we're in our car and we're driving in the back and I'm getting along. I get along with Pete. I is what they show on TV.

[00:54:58] I really do enjoy people. I don't care who they are or what they are. I just enjoy people. I don't care anything, what class of life they're from. I just love people and their souls and their intelligence. All of a sudden underneath her dash, it started smoking like electrical fire in the car. And we're like, Oh my God, we can't drive the car no more. Now me and Tim are like freaking out because our passports are all back at the room. So if somebody stops us and we're like Americans with no passports, we're like screwed.

[00:55:28] So we get, we made, we walked. I never watched so fast in my life. And Tim even hooked it. We got back. Everything's cool. Her car. We, I asked her about her car. She's like, yeah, it's going to be okay. It's just a little wire and stuff. So then the guy comes to pick us up to take us to the airport that owns a brothel. He shows up in like this Cadillac with gold rims. I am not kidding you. He smiles and his teeth are all gold. I'm like, dude, you're making it, man.

[00:55:56] And so he takes us back to the airport. We meet up with our guides. Tim was lucky. He had two guides and, and Tim went, we were hunted back in the bush. We went in on the snowmobiles. They pulled us. Their snowmobiles are weird. They're like different than what we're used to. They got one fat ski in the front and then two tracks on the back, probably because they handle better. I'm sure one ski handles better than two. So then they pull us in on dog sleds. And I mean, literally like these would be what mushers would use in Alaska that are wrapped

[00:56:26] together with the tiny made no metal. It's all dog sleds. Pulls us in on dog sleds. We get to the camp. We got an interpreter who is a principal. Now she's a principal at the high school and an English teacher, but she comes out to this camp. The Russians, you know, everybody's like, Oh, but they, they monitor their bear hunting very well. They only had 28, 21 days of it. It started in the spring and it would end on the 21st day.

[00:56:56] Well, the first one comes a bear is the first guys out of hibernation are the big boys. The boys, the big boars are the first ones out. So they're the ones that are going to get shot first. And then the little guys start coming out, the younger males. And then at the very end of the hunt, when the hunt is over is when the females come out and the cubs. So the females and are hardly ever shot, hardly ever shot. And these big boars have been around long enough.

[00:57:24] They have passed their genetics on to the younger male cubs. There it'll be coming up. So it's not like their genetics is lost, but you're not losing your breeding back that way. And they'd only have two hunts, two 10 day hunts. So we go in and this, she speaks pretty good English. She was our cook too. And you know what? It's amazing what you can make for, we had two, five of us. She'd made soup.

[00:57:48] I have like, you know, three chicken legs and, and it was, and they made a sweet bread, which reminded me of a pancake was her big staple with the bread and lots of vegetables, beets and like I said, beets and cabbage. So, so Tim's got these now Tim's hunting with these guys and these guys are hunters. They're hunters and trappers. And they've been guiding heart surgeons, guys that are like, Oh, take me to the bear, shoot the bear for me. Or let me, you know what I mean? I want to, I gotta be within 50 yards. Right.

[00:58:18] You know, they ain't hunters. I'm sorry. Some of them might've been, or might've been a few hardcore ones. I noticed the guy that owned the, the, the belt company on the plan. I was like, I think you're, you've been out and about too. But a lot of these guys have gone on safaris, you know, where everything's taking care of for them. Not like me and Tim, just little bush asses, just going out there, you know, hunting rabbits whenever we could with the bow and arrow, just shoot things. So anyways, they, they're like excited.

[00:58:46] One, God, one was Victor, another Victor. And Sasha was the other guy's name. And they were so excited to have Tim with them hunting really literally hunting. And these guys went out to get Tim a bear. They're like, we're going to get this guy because it's going to be bragging rights too. Amongst this whole crew, because you gotta remember there's other guides out there with these other helicopter people. So this is like a community. This is a community. We're, you know, on the side, but you gotta remember that.

[00:59:15] And, and it doesn't matter if you're in Russia or America, boys like the boast. Puff, puff, puff. So we, um, so they take Tim out hunting and he hunted, he hunted his tail off and they're, they're seeing some, but not in big and may day. And they told us on may day, I forget what day was our last day of hunting was like maybe the fifth of may or something. They're like, I'm may day. Don't plan on going out. Cause that's a national holiday. Everybody from eight year old up gets drunk on potato vodka.

[00:59:45] It's just something big went down with them. So that's our national holiday. Well, these guys forgot. They took Tim hunting on may day. And that's a day Tim shot his bear. And it was, but in the meantime, now Tim's they've, these guys are so excited with Tim. That one point, the one guy, I think he rode with Victor behind him. On the dog sled. And then, uh, Sasha pulled the other dog sled in case they got a bear. They had a way to bring it back to camp.

[01:00:12] So Victor parked the snowmobile and forgot to set the brake on a, and these guys are they're, they're on mountains and Tim's in the dog sled kind of strapped in. And Tim's not the real law, like go, you know, athletic type of guy. So the sled starts falling backwards, running down the hill, the mallet backwards. Tim said, Oh my God. He said, I was scared. And they freaked out. He said, these dudes, and now you're in deep snow, but they're like, they got snowshoes on or they, the other thing they used was a lot of skis.

[01:00:42] And then the bottom of their skis, they literally put seal. Helps because if you run your hand on a seal pelt and run it backwards, it's really stiff. And that would act like grabbers on the snow. So you could literally walk up a hill on skis. So these guys get, so they shoot this bear. The barrel is a phenomenal hunt for Tim. Tim shot it about 150 yard shot. It was a perfect shot. It was a perfect shot. When they got to the bear, the bear was holding, but the bear, it was a sad shot for him too,

[01:01:11] because he's never hunted. He, he, he never has hunted a big game animal since because the animal was so majestic and so powerful. He did a good shot on it. It was a perfect shot right through, through the, the, the flank came out through the armpit, took out the vitals, the bear dropped, but then the bear got up and it turned. He said, and I looked at me and he stomped his feet like, bitch, I'm still the king.

[01:01:41] And the Russians of course are freaking out. So they're unloading their guns on them. Literally, they know the bear was going to die anyways, but they got the bear. So on the way back though, they're on, they put the bear on the thing and they're excited. Cause this is a big bear. It actually scored like 30 fourth biggest bear shot in Russia at that point. 99. So when they, cause they, they measure the skulls, you know, they don't go by body weight or hide length. They're anything like it's all in the head. And, uh, on the way back, they ended up now.

[01:02:08] These guys don't really know where they're at because they were actually on top of a volcano. Cause the steam is coming out of this thing. Um, through all that snow that's laying on it and they go down and they end up going by army camp that they, cause they were kind of lost and kind of guiding them. It's only army camp and these guys, he said, he said, Susan, Russian soldiers came out of the camp instantly when they heard the snowmobiles holding AK-47s again.

[01:02:34] He said, Victor and Sasha both got up on their snowmobile on one knee. They weren't right next to the camp, but he said it was like they puffed themselves up. Like, hey, we're out here hunting. You know, leave us alone. Where are the white roses from Athens? And where are the roses for me? Of course, in the Europe Rosarium Sangerhausen with the biggest roses collection of the world.

[01:03:03] Many thousand roses are waiting for you with beautiful flowers and wonderful taste. But you could, he said, you could feel the tension between the two of them, even though they're both Russians. You know what I mean? It's like, dude, what are you doing out here in this park? This is our army tour. So anyways, we made it and we made it home. I, uh, I did see, no, I actually got in with them. See, they had, they have a lot of Jack rabbits up there, which are huge.

[01:03:33] They're huge Jack rabbits in Siberia. But then when I hit there off hunting, I'd be outside. It was so nice. It was actually too nice for Siberia that time of year. And I'd be sitting on a stump reading a book and just watching the, we were right by a crack. Um, actually I took a bath in the Creek on day five. I didn't care. I couldn't take it no more. I put on oversized t-shirt and got wet. I seen a white wolf. I'm like, whoa, I see it. I see you over there. I see you over there. And I tell, so they come back from hunting.

[01:04:01] I'm like, Hey man, I told the turd, tell him I saw a white wolf today. And they're like, no, no, she did. She didn't see no white wolf. They don't come down this far. They don't come down this far. I'm like, okay. Okay. I know what I saw. And then a couple of days later, I see it again. Now this time I go hightailing around right where it was. And sure enough, the snow now is so soft. It's leaving tracks. I left tracks. So when they come back from hunting, I showed them, I said, dude, you gotta get a wolf here. And they're like, Oh my God. Wow.

[01:04:30] It was such a greatest trip. And then the Tim shot the bear. I don't drink, but that night I drunk. And Tim said, he's never seen me so drunk in my life. I partied with, they called their friends from town to come out and party. And the one lady, Tim's like cooking over how beautiful her teeth was. She was a teacher with the principal and her husband was a cop in town. And, uh, we drank potato vodka, Russian champagne. And there was some moonshine. Somebody left back from one of our hunters.

[01:05:00] We were so, he said, you guys are so drunk. We were, and I didn't speak a word they spoke and they didn't speak a word I spoke, but we partied all night long. Wow. It was wild. That was a year before survivors. So the only night survivor to me, you know, flying out there was Jack. So Sue, that was in 1999 where you applied for survivor. That could be a movie. 2000. You went to audition. I'm sure. I know why your interview went over an hour. You started. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm a storyteller.

[01:05:30] Yeah. I'm sure they thought this woman is going to be confessional gold. She can talk. I don't. And so you mentioned, you mentioned Tim and Robin asked you when you did your crazy, your wonderful speech. You were telling us when Tim was listening to it, what did he tell you about that? And did he realize? He's I didn't tell him anything. I didn't want to take away no surprises.

[01:05:57] I was just like, cause I think the finale, I don't remember did the finale. Oh, I was actually off of work for the finale and I had to watch it next to those people. I was like, oh my God, I wasn't ready for that. I'm like, oh my God, they're going to, they're going to be, they're going to, they're going to shoot spears at me after this, especially the ones that didn't see it. So I told Tim, I said, just, I said, I said, I said a few things at the end.

[01:06:25] And, uh, so he, oh, he said to me, he says, oh, he goes, that was great. You did a perfect final sales speech. He goes, that was good. It did surprise him because I'm sure I've ripped tongue on him a few times prior to that. I have, I've, I've, I've scolded. I had, you know, 40 years now you gotta, you gotta scold the other part now and then.

[01:06:49] Hey, so I have read that you and Tim got hitched in Vegas for a hundred dollars. Tell them you got hitched there for a hundred dollars. And you mentioned the gentleman with the gold Cadillac. Wasn't the gold Cadillac involved when y'all got married? Oh God, this is so funny. This is, this is funny. Oh, it was a riot. James Brown. Yes. Tell us. James Brown preacher man. So we get, so we're like, okay, we go visit Tim's dad.

[01:07:18] Tim never met his father. Tim, you know, it was a shotgun wedding. Six months later, Tim's dad left. Tim's mom raised him herself. That was a way back then. But Tim knew his father was there. He tried to contact him like when he was 16, but his mom had put the knife in between them, you know? And, and Tim's dad lived in Arizona. We lived in, he, Tim lived in Wisconsin. So finally I was like, dude, you at least got to know your father.

[01:07:45] If he's, if he's alive, you're lucky that you can actually know who your father was. I said, there's a lot of people out here don't even know what their father was. So we went down to Arizona meet him and it was great because Tim's got a lot of his attributes. He's Tim's really smart with math. He's like a mathematical savant. And his dad is the same way. His dad ended up without a college degree, ended up working for a company and head of, he was a manager of, I don't know how many people on a computer that built, uh, parts for

[01:08:14] the conquest airplane that they don't fly anymore. So that's where he came from. So, but in the meantime, Tim's dad likes to play cards, just like Tim blackjack and poker. So we're like, Oh, and Tim's and Tim's now Tim's dad is on his, he wasn't good at the marriage thing. I think it was his third wife. Helen, she was really nice. She was a redneck from South Carolina, I think. And, uh, so she would work with him and that's how they hooked up, got married. They had retired early, took their early retirement.

[01:08:42] So we drove up to Vegas together and it was on mother's day. And we started to plan on a wedding. Cause we weren't engaged and I was like, I don't want nothing to do with this. It's pain in the, you know, behind, forget it. So we're like, we'll just elope up in Vegas and we'll tell our parents when we come back. Yeah. We knew our parents would be mad, but my dad really wasn't mad. I think he was relieved. And, uh, cause he had, he had five kids to raise. He had two younger kids at home. He didn't want to dish somebody out for a wedding.

[01:09:12] So, um, we went a hundred bucks and I found the chapel because there was a movie going across America where a couple of cells, everything they have in California by a motor home. And they're going to replant themselves on the East coast. And in this movie is a silver bells wedding chapel. Cause they're going to renew their vows on the way through Vegas. So that's how that I was like, we got to go to silver bells. Okay. So that's where he went. Ernie. I'll never forget the guy that ran. His name was Ernie. Ernie. He was our witness.

[01:09:40] Cause we did, we told him, dad, you can't be here. If his mom can't be here, you can't be here. And they were like, yeah, that's smart of you. And, uh, so then Ernie's like, well, I called the preacher and it's taken forever. Now we're nervous. We're so nervous. It's taken like forever for this guy to show up. And it's like 20 minutes later. And then also this gold, this Cadillac is so gold, gold paint, gold ribs. She pulls up and James Brown imitator creature, man walks out.

[01:10:10] And I'm like, Oh my God. It's just like, no way. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, if you don't marry me now, we're never getting married. And we were both like, you know what? And they put it on video tape. It was so quick. It's all right. And this guy's was so wonderful. He was the greatest preacher ever. He's a guy that you'd like, just go to Sunday church. Just to hear his wailing at like how you're going to go to hell because you know, you sinned last week and you didn't repent.

[01:10:38] And, uh, it was a hundred bucks, a hundred bucks. So T bird. So in the meantime, after survivor, I got to think survivor got me to ticket to get out of Wisconsin in the cold weather. Finally, I had been wanting to get off for years, but we just couldn't find the way or the ambition or the courage to leave the homeland, you know, and, uh, with the little extra money in our pocket. I was out on some kind of gig somewhere in New York. It was December. I came home, but Tim doesn't do heights at all.

[01:11:07] Well, the head snowed so much that winter. I had like two feet of snow on the roof. You had to go shovel the roof off. I'm halfway through the back half of the roof. Now I'm three quarters way through. I turned on to Tim and he's just there as a little angel, like, you know, protecting me in case I do fall. Um, I said, we're moving. I said, I'm done. I'm done. I can't take this no more. We're done. We're going to Vegas. So we moved to Vegas. We're not in Vegas, but a couple months. And I said, we've got to go revisit our silver girls. Welling chapel.

[01:11:36] You know, we're going to go just drive, do a drive by. It wasn't a couple of nights later. If that place didn't burn down. Oh, my God. It burned down. We never did get to go see it again. But, uh, it's funny. Vegas, Vegas and the weddings is great. I mean, you could ask for a better way to get hooked. So I really want to add this in. Um, my daughter, Ellie got married about three years ago. Rob Sue sent Ellie a card.

[01:12:05] And I just want to put one little part. She put in the card for Ellie was, um, this is what she said to Ellie. 40 years in worth all the work. Talking about, of course, her, her, Tim, her husband. Then this, she says this quote. Now, remember the vows are sacred. I told my Tim when we got married, I didn't believe in divorce, but I damn well believe in murder. Till death do us part. End quote. Thank you for sending that to Ellie. Oh, good, good. Because you know what?

[01:12:35] People just give up so easy. So we're talking about easy. Well, let's get off of me altogether. Now. Oh, no. Oh, no. These you. The powder puffs out there now just blow. I'm like, I don't know. It's I'm so disconnected because I don't do Facebook. I don't do none of that. I just, I just hear what I hear. And I see what I see. And it's sad. I'm like, I feel sad for you people.

[01:12:59] Because if something really hits the fan, you're all just gonna, you're gonna just be walking to the gates, hand in hand and not questioning anything. Sue. And I just, I just don't get it. So I want to know after your first season, which totally blew up with reality TV. Yeah. And then you did y'all, you did all your media. So I wanted to find out from you of all the media you did. What was the most special? What did you enjoy the most?

[01:13:29] What was the most memorable that you did? Oh, you know why? All the media I did was working with TV Guide. TV Guide was a wonderful crew to work with. And we had so much fun. Like I did have, like when I go back to look, like the following week, I'd go into a studio to review what went on. Like the next day so they could air it. I had a guy Bart wrote for me.

[01:13:55] And me and him hooked up like he was into my head, like right off the bat. Just dude was so smart. Bart was there. And then I can't think of the boss at CVS. That was my handler. He ended up actually running TV Guide, I think. But they were cool. The media. I had fun. I had a parade. Like I met so many people. Like I did a parade in Virginia. I think it was called the Apple Blossom Parade.

[01:14:24] And little dynamite Peggy, Peggy Lee, I think her name is. The singer was one of the big entrant. Rocking around the Christmas tree, Peggy Lee. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She was rocking it still. I mean, come on. It was just, it was all good. And I'll never forget. But this is, you know, in all hindsight, it's been fun to watch. They owned you after Survivor, right? Well, you know, so you make the money in advertisement. I mean, no one even knows that.

[01:14:54] I was, I was like, I'd like to make a little change. So maybe I wouldn't have to bust my balls in the truck every day for the rest of my life. Well, sure enough, I had three big advertisement offers. And Les Moves sitting around his little Wednesday poker table with his buddy was probably laughing like, that's the last thing I'm gonna let her do because, because we don't want, or we don't want to associate beer with Survivor. The other one was Wendy's. There were two beer companies in Wendy's. Really?

[01:15:23] Wendy's didn't advertise with Survivor. So, oh, no way we can let her do that. You know, I love Wendy's too. When I did eat fast food, Wendy's was a choice. I haven't ate fast food for 20 years now. I quit. I quit a lot of things in 2006. I got actually in the end when Richard sent me into the my darkest space in my life. And I went to Missouri into the bush into the Ozark Hills. And in 2006, I had a piff of me one day when I'm out running my dog.

[01:15:53] Me and my dogs hung out like my dogs ran free anyways, because we lived so far out. There was nothing there like the next door neighbor was a mile away. And I had a piff of me. Because I'm listening to so much talk radio on AM radio. I learned about Monsanto. And I'm like, oh, my God, they're trying to kill us all. I'm like, and that, of course, I had started a garden. My garden freaking blew up after that. I love gardening. Oh, with heirloom seeds.

[01:16:23] Do you garden, Teresa? Yeah, we have. Not a big one. Just not a big one. No, not a big one. Do you do the heirlooms all? No. Oh, my God. You got to do the heirloom seeds. They're so much fun because then you plant them again. It's like, oh, this is third generation seed that I raised like little babies and they actually taste better. So anyway, my garden blew up and I decided that's when I really started cracking down trying to quit cigarettes. That was tough. I didn't quit till like 20, 2010.

[01:16:53] But I'm like, I ain't eating no more fast food. I ain't eating another jock. I ain't ripping open no packages. Okay, Sue. So, Sue, you said CBS owned you and I know that we had a- Yeah, they said I owned you and you couldn't do anything unless they said. But only for just a year or something, right? Wasn't it just a short time? No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[01:17:14] They, I think on the first one, the first one might have been six months, but they still owned Survivor Sue to an extent. You know what I mean? They always owned me. Did you get an agent like so many people did? Yeah, yeah, I did. I did. I actually got an agent because, and she did a great job, Sherry Spillane.

[01:17:36] And she, she understudied under a lady, I can't think of Ruth's last name, but Ruth was an agent that found a childhood actor. Wow. And made, and brought him out of a mobile home in Florida. He was living in a mobile home in Florida. It was famous. Rudy, why was it? I can't think of it. I'm not big on TV. Brought him up, got him the biggest contract in Hollywood at that time when he came out of hiding.

[01:18:06] The actor who played Rudy? No, no. He's a childhood actor that if we, if you guys seen him, you'd know him. And he was like lost forever. And then he came back as an adult with like the biggest contract. It was a half million dollar contract at that time. Anyway. So yeah, I had, I had an agent because I got, well, how are you going to deal with that stuff? You know what I mean? You just can't. What all were you doing? Because I know you had to have been doing all kinds of stuff that they did approve.

[01:18:34] Well, just game shows, just other game shows. Like I did Cannonball Ron and a dog eat dog and then some celebrity stuff. But there was no, there's no lucrative, like, oh, then the TV guy, you know, but there was no actual lucrative advertising thing then like with Reebok or just, it's just, you know, you're only as hot as you are when you're hot because after one, well, then y'all came back with Australia, you know?

[01:19:04] So then it's like, oh, we got some newbies we can, and we can tap into. Let me mention this. You actually won dog eat dog. Yeah, I did. What was dog eat dog? I forget. We were, Richard was on it and a couple other reality people, I think from Fantasy Island, and it was questions. And then you had to have challenges. You had to win the challenge. And if you won the challenge and you got it, went on to the next stage. And there was two of us at the end.

[01:19:34] And it was, it was crazy because you were on the end. All I remember T-Bird was that end challenge standing above the water and way above the water. And you're on a little pedestal that's just on a pole and you got to have both feet on it. And you had to balance and you had to balance and I outbalanced the other girl. Barely, barely outbalanced the other girl because I wasn't much of a balancer. But, uh, yeah, that, that chick, that co-host of that is a big game show. Cause like she did the beast show. I think.

[01:20:05] Yeah. Burns did that show. Yeah. Yeah. I was on so many. I can't five years. It was a five years. I did go five years and actually made a little bit of a living off of made. Basically what I'd make driving the truck was a whole lot, but it was enough for me. You know what I mean? But then after, and then went on the all-star and blew it. I was like, Oh no, no, this is, yeah, I don't need it. Go back to what, uh, what I enjoy, what I know, what I'm really good at.

[01:20:34] And, uh, trucking has been, I gotta say the trucking has been very, very good to me. It has it. And you know what you're, you're by sure you work with your crew and your boss and you got, you know, dispatchers and stuff like that. But a lot of times you're your own captain in your own boat in your own space. But people don't realize how much, like when you are in your own space and you're driving truck, you're thinking about, you can be thinking about two different things at a time. First and foremost is the traffic after 35 years, it becomes second nature, but you never

[01:21:04] take it for granted. You know, I hit a green light. If I go through a green light, even with my car, my husband hates driving in a car with me because I drive it. Like I'm driving my semi truck and drives them wild. I'm like, no, I still cover the intersection. I don't care if three, four cars have gone in front of me. I still, as I'm going through the foot's off the gas, it's over the break and I'm covering the intersection. You know, you can't nothing for granted. I've seen a lot. I seen a lot of bad accidents, man. I tell you what.

[01:21:34] Did CBS, had they, had they ever asked you back like heroes versus villains? I would have for sure thought you would have been on there. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. CBS hasn't talked to me since. Is it hard to believe that the age that you are now, you'll be 65 tomorrow. Yeah. It basically is the same age that BB and Sonia were when they played with you in Borneo. Is that right? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You're right. You're right.

[01:22:02] Actually, you are older now than they were when they played. When Sonia and BB played. Oh wow. Wow. Yeah. I think they were around 62 or 63. And I didn't even realize you were the same age. You and Rich and Gretchen were all 38, 39. Y'all were the same, basically the same age. Yes. When we played. When we played. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we were. Me and Rich was the same age. And we were like, wow. And Gretchen. Gretchen.

[01:22:31] Gretchen was the same age as me. Yep. Gretchen was 38 and had. Oh, she disappointed me so bad. Why? Because me and Gretchen. Because me and Gretchen. We hooked up on the boat that was taking us out because on the board it was free for all. You could talk to whoever you want. They weren't. They weren't isolating us on that first one. We were on this Malaysian boat full of all this stuff with the fish traps and the survival gear. And me and Gretchen were like, we go up to, we both come up to each other and we're like,

[01:23:00] Hey, I know you, you know me because we're two of a kind. And we, we were same age, strong women. And Gretchen told me what she was a survivalist from the Marine. I'm like, shit. I said, I'm, I'm a redneck hunter. I'm same darn thing as that other than, you know, you're surviving against whatever mother nature. So I said, so we said, like, you know, they're going to throw us off. This boat. She says, yeah. I said, you know what? You see all this stuff around here.

[01:23:30] I said, we should start splitting it up. Your team make a pile for your team. I make a pile for my team. And she's like, yeah. So me and hers are splitting stuff up. Okay. One for you, one for me. And we were doing it fairly and we were doing so fairly. There are three surrounds, those, those things you wrap around you that they wear in Malaysia. There are three of them. And we're like, well, so we took it and we ripped it in half. And she got it.

[01:23:58] And Jenna, I'll never forget, started freaking out that we were ripping the surround in half. And me and Cratchit earlier, like whatever. So then the crew, now they're up front, Burnett and them on the boat. They're seeing what's happening. And they're freaking out because they can't say anything because it's not against the rules. We only had a couple of rules and that wasn't against the rules. So they go below to having powwow and they come up and they come up and Burnett comes up to me and Gretchen, like trying to be a badass, which he did not make the bad cop.

[01:24:28] Greg Fulantian made the bad cop. Burnett's too soft. So he comes up to me and Greg, okay, you got to put all that stuff back. And me and Gretchen did each other like, okay. Yeah, right. We didn't say, we didn't argue. We took like a couple of things, put them back and left it at that. Like, haha, we got you. We got you. So then when it came time to throw us off, they'll wind us up and they're throwing the box out and showing us what teams are going to be what teams.

[01:24:54] And because of Gretchen and Susan doing what they did with the supplies, you are going to have three minutes to exit the boat. Now you only have one minute to exit the boat. So, I was thinking. I don't know about the other of these people because we were wild. We broke loose. It was so much fun jumping off that boat.

[01:25:16] And then when I heard we had it so easy because the tide took us in to our camp, we were dragging all this stuff that we never even used after that. But the other camp was fighting the tide to go in. They literally had a hook of boat to them to finish towing them in. They would never made it. Never. They didn't think about that. But Sue, what was the part where Gretchen disappointed you? Oh, when she. So then I'm looking forward to Gretchen. I'm like, I'm getting along with Kelly. What day did we merge on Rob? You're the.

[01:25:45] I would guess day 19. Okay. Day 19. So day 19. Yeah. Cause then we got 20 days left. So halfway through that makes sense. Um, so then me and, uh, I've been hanging with Kelly make get along great with her. We're building benches and we're doing all this cool stuff to make camp great. And, but then we're looking forward to the merge to have new people to associate with. Cause we're getting bored with each other. Um, which is a big part of being out there, the boredom. Um, so.

[01:26:15] They come over and us girls go hiking out right away. We get Gretchen and Jenna, and I don't know who else was left with the girl, a Colleen on their thing, but a few of us girls get out and me and Kelly get Gretchen off to the side alone. And we're like, Hey, Hey, what do you think? We, uh, we do a, like a girls girls alliance here and, and, uh, take the guys out. And some on that line.

[01:26:42] And Gretchen says, Oh, I, I don't know about that. I think we should get to know everybody. Me and Kelly look, I, I, I did get along. We looked at each other like, Oh, she's dumb. Mm hmm. Dude, we don't have time to get to know everybody. She's, she is so dumb. So then that was, we were, we were so mean. Everybody hates us because we were so mean, but it was so much fun.

[01:27:10] Um, and it was strategic. Like when the girls, I was the first one to do a liar's vote. I think like I told the girls I'd vote for the guy, but I vote for Sonia. Yeah. Because I'm like, this is strategic. Your skin is ripping open. We're just some brushing up against it, which I'm big about. Like I'm 65 and I eat a lot of salmon. So my skin stays tough. Cause I'm in a lot with the truck. I cut myself easy. So they had to vote her out.

[01:27:38] But then when the team came over and we're discussing who to vote out, I literally said, told Richard and Kelly, like, and other people that cause Sean's going to vote with us. Cause we're still a tight team. This other team might've come over, but we're not going to bond with these youngsters because Sean's actually older now at this point. And Sean's really mature in his mind too, as well. Um, we're going to vote out Gretchen. And because that's like taking away their mom. That was the exact.

[01:28:10] So when we voted her out, they collapsed. They just collapsed. Like, Oh, it was, it was like, so don't raise your kids like that. Raise your kids. Like you figure it out. I was wild. That was so much fun. I had so much fun. If Gretchen had a, if Gretchen had a latched on to you and Kelly really latched on where you knew, then you would have had an all girls alliance, which would have changed. Oh, it would have.

[01:28:38] Oh, it would change the whole, it would change everything. And I was really sad, uh, with Ramona going. Like when I heard Ramona got voted out because she couldn't eat the rice and she got sick. Like I was so disappointed because I liked Ramona. I'm like, she was a strong woman. Oh my God. Could you imagine had it been like Ramona Gretchen and me in alliance? Oh, and we would have been loyal. You know what I mean? Because we come from that generation.

[01:29:06] Now it's like, Oh, none of that matters anymore. And let's all just lie and backstab and be a bunch of lazy cahoots. And there's no, it's like, I don't know. Do I now? Like I probably won't even watch survivor. I don't know when the next time I heard that all new people on this one. Yeah. 51 is going to be all new people.

[01:29:32] It's about, yeah, they get what they have to because they're aging out their, uh, bringbacks. Yeah. Hollywood is very much, which is sad. They reflect what's going on in the world. And what's going on in the world is we take our old people and we, uh, give them a nice little cozy corner in an apartment or a nursing home to finish it up because we don't want to be there during the day. And the ugly, you know what I mean?

[01:30:01] Or during the hard, which is so sad because you learn so much. I have been with old people till the day they died. And, and it's amazing to watch them. They're just, my mother-in-law was prime example of that. I actually took care of her till the day she died and she died from brain cancer.

[01:30:25] And she hated me, but I made damn sure those last weeks where she couldn't talk. I like quit work. I actually went to my boss and said, I said, because it was, it was a long fight for her. She had cancer, but she was like an anomaly. She didn't get radiation or she never got chemo and it just cut cutting it out of her, you know, four ribs here and a kidney here and part of a lung here. She never was on oxygen.

[01:30:51] And, uh, she was amazingly strong because she smoked palm walls for 50 years straight, Rob. Yeah. And when they, she got cancer in her lungs and they told her she had COPD, she quit. And that helped me. Cause then I quit. Cause I'm like, I can't, if you can quit, I can quit. And, uh, she was tough and she lived for, I think 10 years after her first diagnosis. And, uh, she ended up the brain cancer.

[01:31:17] Then they had to do the radiation and she wouldn't hardly talk to me, but I kept telling her, I'm like, Jean, make sure you're good with Jesus. And she would go to church, to church. The local church had like a luncheon for seniors and she would go there, which is great because she had a, uh, uh, in her car. Then I seen, she had some religious, uh, sacrament, you know, like things like Mary, uh, Jesus cross and, uh, mother Mary thing.

[01:31:47] And, and I'm like, go good. And then when the brain cancer came, they can only radiate her so much. And she hated me so much. She wouldn't allow me. She didn't put me on the hip hop. She's like, Oh, she can't talk. Cause it was a fight. It was an only son. And I took her only son and I'm going to end up with her only son. So she was jealous that way. And she was, but whatever, um, they do, they do not tell you. Then they had to stop because you can only take so much radiation. They re they didn't tell my husband.

[01:32:16] And I don't know if I would have known to ask this, but brain cancer doubles in size every four days. So this pea size tumor. Grew. Bam. And then the next thing, you know, I was at work on a Sunday and Tim calls me, are you on your way? I said, yeah, I'm just getting ready to come home. He goes, I think my mom had a stroke. I said, what happened? What's it look like? And he told me, I said, oh, that was eight o'clock this morning. Cause she was very much of a routine woman. This is what I did. It was the bad.

[01:32:47] Wo gibt's eigentlich die weißen Rosen aus Athen? Und wo regnet's für mich nochmal rote Rosen? Natürlich im Europa-Rosarium Sangerhausen. Mit der größten Rosensammlung der Welt. Viele tausend Rosenarten warten auf Sie. Mit prachtvollen Blüten und herrlichem Duft. www.rosarium.de I went to work Monday. I seen how bad it was and what was going to go down. And I turned to my boss and I said, I'm leaving.

[01:33:17] I'll see you in two weeks. And if you want to fire me, I don't care. I got to go take care of this woman. And then, yeah, she was 10 days, 10 days, but it was great because I, I helped her be peace. It was unbelievable. Cause you can, these people can't talk or anything like that. But so they, they, them shunning the senior citizenship. Like really? Like, do I look like I like, okay, Sonia and BB were the same age as me.

[01:33:43] Do I look like I'm in the same shape that Sonia and BB were in when they went on my show? No, I still kick a 20 year old's ass. I'm doing a 20 year old's job. I do P and D. I do pick up and delivery in the city of Las Vegas, baby. And that ain't easy. And they don't give me the easy freight either. There's no, and I'm the only chick that works with 40 guys that stuck it out for five years. And I wait to guys, the guys are great, but the guys really are good.

[01:34:12] And we do have the one rule. If you can't get the freight off yourself, you are allowed to call and have another driver come and help. And I did have another driver come and help when we had to unload a whole playground set for some kids. And this is a playground set. That's got the, the tree house and the swing and the sled, and it's 30 feet long and it weighs 7,000 pounds. Well, I ain't getting that off lift gate by myself. Yeah.

[01:34:38] But so, so they're all, you know, so it's like, no, I still, uh, every day, you know, and, and, and I laugh because, um, I'll never forget one time I ran into a driver was delivering to a warehouse. I was working at Florida cause I had to get out of truck for a little bit because my horse hurt himself so bad that the only way, if I was going to have a chance of recouping them and bringing them back, I couldn't be working 14 hours.

[01:35:05] I had to get, I was hauling milk, raw milk down there in Florida. I actually go to the farms and pick it up from the dairy farms and such. So, uh, I was at this auto warehouse and this, this driver pulls up and he backs in and unloading his freight. And he's got electric pallet jack. I'm like, cause I had done P and D prior to this in Missouri. And I'm like electric pallet jack. He goes, yeah, he goes, we got it like three months ago. And I already put 20 pounds on.

[01:35:32] And I started laughing cause he didn't have to work no more with running up and moving in himself. So yeah, you know, I actually enjoy my job because it does. It definitely keeps me strong. It keeps you mentally fit. And, uh, because I'm not done, I've got about five more years in the truck. I'm going to finish it out hauling what I truly love, which is horses. So I decided to combine my knowledge of, you know, of horses, which that was going to be a horse trainer. That's all I was ever going to be. I didn't need high school.

[01:36:01] Mom's like, no, you need high school. Thank God. And, uh, I'm going to go back to the fur babies. I'm going to haul racehorses. I go back where I'm at in Florida. We still, we, we still own some property there and, uh, go back to Florida and, uh, finish it out hauling the racehorses high end. You know, and it doesn't even matter if they're, they're bought off the meat wagon and they're going to go to the barn to get rehab because they think they can make it. Like everyone's I just, they're special and they're sacred.

[01:36:32] And you, when you're, I mean, I think it's just, you got to think those are live animals behind you. I still, to this day, I have my driving record is impeccable. Thank God here. Knock on wood. Um, impeccable, but, um, yeah, I want to finish. I started with the horses actually, Paula driving. Cause when I was a kid, I, I, I showed him, I had this registered quarter horse. That was, uh, he was called a done a buckskin. Okay. And you could double register on that.

[01:37:01] So I'm a, we don't have much money. I actually had to sell my own riding outfits. I believe it or not. I can sell like a, a, a, a, I can, you want something sold. I could make it from scratch. And, um, so my mom made me do this cause we couldn't afford to buy the real clothes. And, uh, me and my dad would get in Sunday morning. And when I was 13 and we're hauled the horse to these shows, I had little buckskin classes. And then I'd ride them or show them and halter on that.

[01:37:28] And then I'd get points towards this buckskin championship. And after two and a half years of doing this, we got, I got, I made him a champion, uh, pleasure champion. He was so good. And he come out of an old breed called, uh, uh, he's. So, uh, which was a great cutting horse, but my horse was laid back. He wouldn't cut a cow for the life of him. He'd be just like, let me just stand here and hang out next to him. That's good enough. And he was a great kid's horse.

[01:37:55] But when I turned 16, I got my driver's license. My dad said, and my dad had built this great big trailer, two horse trailer with a dressing room from scratch. He had tubed it out and welded it on. And so we had an old 68 Chevy pickup three speed on the column. And he said, okay, you're driving this morning and I'm reading the map. And that's where I started. I, I blame my dad for my job, started pulling that trailer.

[01:38:24] And then actually, as I got into the horses further and I was still in the horse business for my Tim, I got in with, uh, hunters and jumpers, the Grand Prix guys, the guys that go to Olympics, the Panama games and stuff. And I worked for a set of twins out of Wisconsin. Uh, I had a beautiful farm up there, but in the winter we go down to Florida and show January, February, March in what they call the, uh, winter circuit, you know, two weeks in West Palm, two weeks in like Fort Lauderdale, two weeks over here in Jacksonville.

[01:38:52] And, uh, so they, they, we, we take a ton of horses. Those two drove the semi truck with like 10 horses in it. And then I had to drive the dually Chevy, old Chevy pickup truck, six horse trailer, but we could only put five. Cause I'll never forget. The one mare was so big. She had to have the middle stall all to herself. She was a big warm blood that come out of Europe. He leaked. And, um, so I drove that. So we took off. I'll never forget that trip. I'll never forget it. Rob to this day.

[01:39:22] I'm 19, 19, 20 ish. Yeah. 20, 21, maybe. And, uh, we take off there. Everything's loaded all the tech. You busted your balls for days, getting this crap. Cause we're, we're moving. We're moving the barn for a while. And, uh, they get in the trailer. I'm by myself in the pickup truck. I'm going to drive it. And I'm following them. I have no clue where I'm going. There's no GPS on a phone. I might have had a map with me in case I got lost. But cause I could read a map. My father made me read that map when I was 13.

[01:39:52] Where we're going today. You tell me where we're going to turn. You watch that map. And, uh, we went through the smoke. We went nonstop 19 hour run straight through, through the smoky mountains in the fog. I'm terrified of losing their tail lights. Cause I'm a terrified of getting lost. We go to Florida. It was so much. I'll never forget that. That winter down there was a blast. We did really well. All of our horses showed.

[01:40:16] Well, I had a horse that wasn't, um, he wasn't, uh, he was ill. Like you have grooms. I was a groom and I had three horses that I was assigned to. And then I had another groom that was assigned to another three horses with, I worked for, uh, Richard, the one brother. And then there was Donald who had his horses with his customer, but this guy was sick. He come off the trailer sick. It was too long of a haul for him. There's an extent to how long a horse can be on a trailer and really. Yeah. And he got sick.

[01:40:45] He was owned by, uh, Richard's dad. He was actually went to be sold down in Florida. So he couldn't. So I hand walked him for weeks. I'd take them out and hand walk them on the little trails around these parks. We're at these huge horse parks. Star was his name. And I basically got a back. And then I started lunging him and he's getting issues. So, uh, they never forget the day. Donald says, Hey, I'm going to, uh, ride star in the, in a level four jump class up here,

[01:41:13] intermediate jumping class, because now they got somebody want to buy him and they think he's ready. So I go over to his grooms who are being really mean to me now because they've been whacked out on coke for how many weeks? Because everybody's doing it. It's, it's, it's Florida and it's the eighties. Yeah. In the eighties. I mean, they don't want to give me a saddle. They don't want to give them. Donald's got three saddles. Oh no, we don't got a saddle for you.

[01:41:41] You're going to have to use a saddle after it gets off the horse in that jumping class. And I'm like, well, whatever. So I bridle the horse up, get everything, but the saddle, we're going to take them up to ring this and these horses now are docile when you work with them. But when you go to equipment on them, they fire up. It took, it took probably 30 minutes, two guys holding this horse by the bridle to hold them enough to get a saddle on him. Because he's so wired up.

[01:42:10] Cause he's now been fucking six weeks of just hand walk. And I'm like, wow. The horse goes out there and literally kicks the class. He came in like second or third place. Hadn't been in a show ring in weeks. And then they take them out and the chick, they did end up selling them. He worked out a lot for him and they were able to sell them. But it was, it was fun. We took care of, we had some really, really, really good horses.

[01:42:34] They actually had one that won then a second year green up in Madison Square Garden, the following winter. Randy, a little quarter horse. You wouldn't know, but there's a difference between hunters and jumpers. Jumpers basically got to make the course, don't knock nothing down and go to time it. Hunters when they go over a jump, got to look good. They both are front feet should be together. Their ears forward, you know, like, like little poppies. And when they're hanging their legs and stuff like that is when they're, they're, they're sloppy.

[01:43:05] But did you ever, okay. So did you ever spend much time with any cattle or goats? Cause this is where I'm going. I'm goats. Goats and cattle. I grew up on a dairy farm. Yeah. With a dairy farm in the summer. I love cows. Okay, good. So you played with my guy, Big Tom and with Rob on All Stars. Y'all were on the same tribe. I believe y'all all started out together, right? Rob and Big Tom. That is true. Yes. Yes. Yes, we did Rob. And we couldn't drag Tom away from Rob and Amber.

[01:43:33] He was like, cooked like an biblical cord. Well, I would have thought. He was being dumb. Well, I would have thought you and Big Tom, just from your background. Oh, he hated me. Well, I don't know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Why? Because your background is so similar. Hardworking people worked hard their whole life. I would have thought you and Big Tom, and he's very smart, by the way, just like you are. Just very smart.

[01:43:58] And you both try to give off this impression that you're, like you say, a dumb redneck. But both of y'all are very intelligent. Why didn't that play out? Why didn't that work out? Because Rob was there. We tried. How hard did we try, Rob, to pull Tom? Hold on. Let me get this full on. I don't got really a thing holding it. Okay. We tried really hard. Me, Alicia, and Rob tried really hard to pull Tom away from Rob and Amber. Yeah, it was hard.

[01:44:27] We, we, it was in the right, the right, he was right off the bat that those two are going to stick together and they ain't going anywhere. Yeah. And Tom, for some reason, was like, oh no, Rob's my guy. Yeah. He loves me. He does not. That's what Lex thought that too. Yeah. We still see what happened to them. Yeah. Rob and, oh, no shit. Rob and Amber, you know, obviously they, they linked, they linked up and Big Tom was very much with, uh, Boston Rob.

[01:44:56] And then also, but Alicia, I think also was like very close with Amber. So it was, cause they had already played on survivor all stars. And so as survivor Australia. So it was very, it was very hard to like, uh, come up with anything that wasn't go after one of the people that wasn't like a very close with Boston Rob. It was, it was, it was, yeah, it was hard. It was, it was the way it played out. We're like, oh, well.

[01:45:24] But T-Bird did you ask me about what it was like to play with Sue Hawk? Oh God. Okay. So I'm going to ask Rob this cause Rob, so this, so Sue and Rob, I've been trying, I've been talking with Sue for quite a few years now. Yes. We've never met. Um, she is, there are so many things I've learned about this incredible woman that most people don't know.

[01:45:51] Um, she's very much old school with an old soul. She writes letters. Look, she start, we start. I love writing letters to each other. She didn't mention this. She kind of alluded to it a little bit. She used to have no TV. She would only listen to late night AM radio for years. No TV. She's, you know, considers Gen X is like the last, I think she told me the last of the

[01:46:18] badass to be born or the Gen X from 1965 to 1980 works really, really hard. So, so now she's getting her camera straight. Yeah. I am. I am. So keep it on Teresa. So Rob, when most people, I want to ask you what you thought playing with Sue. I'm sure you were enamored with her when you were out there. Had y'all met before when you played and would you consider Sue a hero or a villain?

[01:46:48] Because I can tell you now after many years with Sue texting and letter writing for me, she is a huge hero for so many reasons. Well, there's many different, many different parts of that question. I will say that I will never forget the first time I ever met Sue Hawk that she was with TB guide and she was out there in the Amazon to do interviews with my cast. And I was so thrilled. I think that she's the first survivor player I ever met in person.

[01:47:18] And so I, I, she was there to interview me and I had a million questions for her. We had a great interview. If I remember right, we had a good universe. Don't we? Yeah. I mean, I don't remember what we talked about, but I remembered how fun you were and how cool it was to see you there. And I was just over the moon to meet Sue Hawk. And I'm sure on a couple other occasions, I ran into Sue like when they announced the all

[01:47:43] stars, but then when, when Sue was on my, my tribe in survivor also, I was over the moon. I, I loved every minute that I spent with Sue. I don't have one negative moment. And same to you, Rob. I loved you from the get go. Cause I, I just like, why not? You're, you're funny. You're nice. You're cordial. Yeah. We were both looking at each other like, Oh, we're so screwed. Well, I knew I wouldn't go.

[01:48:13] Maybe if you made the merge, that was a big thing. If we could have made the merge. Maybe there was, but there was nowhere else to go with that group. But Sue, I always worried that I actually in the end, that was a boring group. Yeah. So I was worried that maybe I got on your nerves. I was asking too much about. No, no, no, no. Cause I, that's my thing with guys. I guess I, I growing up around so many boys and brothers and being so involved.

[01:48:42] Like I was a tomboy because I had no choice. I just learned how to razz guys. I liked razz. I like still at today's day, some of the guys that I work with, I, I, I, you know what? Yeah. I razz them. I razz them. That's what guys, that's what guys do to guys. But Sue is the hardest worker. Uh, and, and, and Sue, you know, that you, that we used to go and get like the, the shellfish. It's like, Hey, we're, we're out here. Oh my God.

[01:49:09] And we would get, I remember you would get the eyeballs, uh, use what. Yes. Because the tides would come up and these fish were hooked to the rocks. The tides would go down and all you had to do was go up there and pick their little. Like shells off and boil them up. And they were, we would have never starved out on that one. Well, only me and you would eat them. Everyone's like, no, this is gross. I can't eat this. Did you get, did you, did you continue eating them after I left then? I was, you were there longer than me.

[01:49:40] No, God. That's why we had to take somebody out. And I was sad about you. Me and Alicia had a little thing going on the side. What happened to Alicia? Is she still around? I don't know. We haven't, we haven't heard from her. T-bird, write Alicia a letter. See if you can find Alicia. I already have. I like, she was a bomb. She was a bomb. Yeah. Yeah. Alicia was great. She was old. So yeah, Alicia was also. Yes. So I, I remember we had like one of like the worst nights ever on survivor of the,

[01:50:08] like when they had like the gigantic rain storm and we had won the tarp and we didn't even hang it up yet. And we were all just like underneath like that, uh, hot ass tarp, like, uh, sweating under like a torrential downpour and the camp was starting to flood. And, uh, yeah, there was some bad, uh, some rough nights, but yeah, you and I, I think that we were both that you, you could sleep, right? You also were a good, a good sleeper out there. I could sleep. I could get some sleep.

[01:50:38] Yeah. Both could sleep. Like, uh, I think that everybody else kind of was like, had a lot of more complaints about the conditions. Yeah. It wasn't comfortable. That's why I like now I can't imagine. So how many shots did you all have to take to go, um, to your location, say in Africa or down there? I remember a bunch from Amazon. Amazon was a bunch. Cause I almost, I almost went, I, I interviewed you all before you went down to the Amazon. TV guy was going to go to the Amazon. I don't know what happened.

[01:51:07] It got that part of it got pulled like where I had gone to Thailand and been right there at Thailand, um, covering it for the first couple of days. So I had, I remember Amazon. I'm like, Oh my God, meningitis, yellow fever, all these immunizations you had to get to travel. And I can't, it's gotta be the same thing over there in Africa. Wasn't it T bird? Yeah. I don't remember how many shots, but I want to say quite a few, maybe a lot. It was a lot. Yeah. Did you? Yeah.

[01:51:37] Wait, I got it. I don't, I'm glad y'all slept good, Rob and everything, but this is where I want to go. So Sue, you knew a lot of the, you knew probably all of the all-star players because you had interviewed them for TV guide. Yeah. Yeah. So Rob, when you hit the ground there, y'all knew the game. Did y'all start talking alliances or were y'all just talking about collecting starfish or whatever y'all are talking about? I don't know. I feel like that. Honestly, I really feel like that there wasn't a lot of survivor being played.

[01:52:05] Nobody really was talking too much about a lot. It wasn't. It wasn't. That wasn't. Rob and Amber are together. And it was like, who can get closest to Rob and Amber? Well, that was kind of the whole, the whole game at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you, they didn't have, well, see. Until they were happy. But the point, yeah. But the point was then before it was like, who was on with us? We had Alicia, Tom, me, me, that was it. That was it. See? Yeah. Me, you, Rob and Amber was three against three.

[01:52:35] And we couldn't get enough votes with three of us to get those guys out. And I believe it wasn't Rob. Boston was in shape back then. So he was, he was, what are you saying? So I see. I kind of seen like a video on him. Like here riding a horse and I'm like, Oh my God. Yeah. He's only 55. I think he's younger than that. Um, Oh no way. Oh my God. Oh my God.

[01:53:05] Married life is too easy for him. I think. Yeah. Oh, no way. Oh Jesus Christ. These people. What the hell Amber they're still together. We, me and Sue saw it happen in real life. We saw it happen. We saw the whole courtship. Yeah. Yep. Yep. They're still together. They got kids. They're doing the family thing. We were together, you know, it was 12 days in the game that I was there, but we were together for like a week before the game even started where we were living at the, at the house in Panama.

[01:53:34] Yes. Yes. That's what they call. Yeah. The house in Panama. Yeah. We were there, but we really weren't allowed to talk to each other, but we, we, you know, yeah, there was people. Yeah. Can you remember? Yeah. I remember that. I was like, I was like, Holy shit. They got us here for how many? Five days of breakfast to go out there. And then the funny thing about that was remember. So the water, because we're by ocean. So we can't, it's not like we can go to a river and boil water, which I feel bad for T-Bird and those guys in Africa. That was brutal. Yeah.

[01:54:03] It was bullshit really, because I can't believe that crew is that stupid, um, to set them up there. So anyways, um, we go to get the water. I think they're like, Oh, you got to boil. Remember they had that power at the house. You got to boil your water for this many minutes before you drink it. Yeah. Of course I don't listen to authority. I don't know. No, no, no. I'm like, really? I'm like, Oh my God. I spent six years drinking beaver poop up in the Canadian bush. Yeah. I think my body's, my body's.

[01:54:32] Oh, and as a kid, I was drinking out of the water. T-Bird, you don't know this with cows and goats. Well, as kids, we ran around out on the farm. And, but when we got thirsty, we stuck our head in the moss laden, ow, trough to drink our water. Right out of the trough. We didn't care. So the, the water's there. Yeah. This is so funny. And then I'm like, this is boiling the water. Screw that. I'm thirsty. I want to drink it when I want to drink it. Yeah. So I went to get water.

[01:55:01] I took, put it in there and I took a big guzzle out of it right then and there. And it wasn't what about half hour later, I'm on the beach and the doctor comes by and looking at me like he's looking at me like, why'd you do that? Yeah. Because I'm not going to get sick. And I never did get sick. Yeah. You and Rudy, you both, you both did it and you were fine. Yeah. It was also that we didn't have fire. That was like a big thing that we didn't have, that we didn't have any fire and we couldn't boil the water and we couldn't drink.

[01:55:30] And so it was like four days that we didn't have any, any clean water. And then Sue, I guess smartly said, I'm just gonna drink it out of the well. Yeah. It's like, they put it in there. Right. And those scaredy cats, Rob and Amber kept boiling in the water probably through the whole show. I mean, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The five days ahead on all stars, Sue and Rob, did y'all train with the locals? We trained with the Messiah. No. Okay. No.

[01:55:58] When you were in Borneo, did you train with any of the locals for fire? No, you didn't do that. No, no, no. We had no. Yeah. They did in the Amazon train. You won't. They should have because that's a whole different. I mean, start fire. You know, a dry wood is one thing. Start fire with the dampness that you have in the jungle constantly, constantly. I mean, it's like you're a mushroom.

[01:56:27] So Rob, you didn't tell me, so villain, hero or. Yeah. So I think in real life, I think Sue's a hero, but I think in terms of what survivor would call a villain because Sue speaks her mind and isn't necessarily. People can't handle that. She's going to say the truth, whether you like it or not. I think on survivor that that constitutes a villain. Okay. So Sue, from your playing in Borneo being well, amazing to what happened to you and all stars.

[01:56:55] Did you notice any shift in your fan mail or how people reacted to you from? No, no, because I am. Yeah, no, I had fan mail. Yeah, I actually had some great fans. Like I said, I got super fans probably in the IRS. They stayed loyal to you through. Yes. The whole thing. They say dead. They did.

[01:57:22] And and but then, you know, I just walked away. I walked away. I don't you know, and and I kept moving. Reason I kept moving actually was a loose trail. It took a while. It took a while. They did. They paid me. You know, I went from Vegas to Tucson to Missouri to Florida. I'm not here. Yeah. You know, I just you're hard to find. So I know you were hard to find. You're hard to track.

[01:57:47] So, yeah, when you were when you were moving around, you know, when you were moving around like that, were you? I know the answer to this. I'm pretty sure. Were you recognized by people? Oh, oh, still now and still today. Yes. Yes. Yes. Very. Not so much now because I basically just work. But I'm trying to think of any of the guys I drop and pick up at. No, but I do every I had a guy here. Oh, my God. I went to go.

[01:58:17] I had to go to TSA when you got hazmat. You got to go every four years. You get your fingerprints rerun. I don't know why you got me on file. If I did anything, you'd show up. So I'm at the TSA office. And like one of the guys that's in charge of it. Comes out and he looks at me. Hold on. I got a drink. He looks at me. And he says. He says. You're a survivor. I said, yeah.

[01:58:47] He says. Oh, he goes, I recognize you. He was because. He went to church. With Kelly Wiggle worse attorney. Wow. She had attorney for. He said. So I. That's why he goes. I'm very aware of. And I said, I'm assuming because I'm, you know, Mormons out here. So Kelly Wigglesworth attorney. I was like, oh, that's cool. He goes. But I do my voice. My voice can give me away.

[01:59:13] If people think about most people don't because most people got short term memory. They really do. Even though I don't look the same. I'm built the same. I'm built the same. I ain't changing that. But yeah, I got more wrinkles on my face. My hair straighter now, especially when you're in the heat in the desert. It doesn't get the curly anymore. Yeah. So. But I do get recognized. I've been recognized on the street where people literally come up and just hug me. Oh, my God. I love you. And that has been within the last, say, four years.

[01:59:43] So I don't go out and about much on crowds. Yeah. So after I got voted out on survivor all stars, I spent a lot of time outside of the game with Rudy. And that was really such a fun part of that experience. I spent about three weeks with Rudy. And I know that you were both fond of each other. Did you have a favorite Rudy memory from your time with him? Oh, I do. That is the greatest question ever. The best memory I have of Rudy. The game had just started.

[02:00:13] BB was still in there. There might have been one tribal where somebody went, but I don't remember who the way ways. I think Sonia was the first one voted out on ours. Right. Mm hmm. Sure. Okay. So they're doing this challenge and the position that BB and Rudy had identical positions on the game and they were standing about 12 feet apart on a platform and there was air between them because they're about 10 feet above the water.

[02:00:39] I don't know what happened, but BB said something or I think BB said something or just some. And I seen Rudy. Rudy go into action because Rudy was like he was a soldier, but he was a soldier for his team. This is a guy tied to the team. This dude, Rudy puffs up like this, like, Oh, my God.

[02:01:12] And they actually, the producer had to step in and calm the situation down because really wanted to kick his butt from saying something or going after his team. Wow. Cause yeah, he was so cool. He was so fun. He was so fun having the only thing I want is a salami sandwich. Mm hmm. That's all I never wanted to eat. He's like, I'd be okay with just a salami sandwich. Mm hmm.

[02:01:39] And then me and him, believe it or not, have matching tattoos. Oh, the one, no one and only tattoo I have on my back that I got when I was 18 because I didn't want to rose was a panther crawling down. Well, Rudy had the same panther on his calf climbing up. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, Oh, that's wild. That is just wild. Well, that should have bought so soon when you were asking when you had the tie vote with

[02:02:06] Rich and you said, Rudy, you know me, you should, you know, do whatever you want to do. That's when you should have brought. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Look, we imagine. Rudy. No, no. Well, Rudy was, he was being soldered by Richard that loyal that he was loyal. And I knew that yours. And I don't blame him. That's the way that's the man. He is. He was a lawyer. Loyalty. He actually stuck around back then. You know, now it's like really, I don't know.

[02:02:36] It's so back and forth, back and forth, deceptive and talking about. And then I had a blow. What blew my mind on 51 was Ozzy. I never watched Ozzy in any of his season, but I heard, you know, you hear stuff over the years with this Ozzy guy and he goes on. And I'm like, first, I'm like, who the hell wears a mullet in 2026? I'm like this dude. What the, he, you know, so that was the first thing.

[02:03:05] And then, then when he had the dream. Yeah. He is a, he is a shallow soul. He has a young weak souls, what he is. And, and then, so he does that. He doesn't use his idol. And then I'm like, I would have never spilled anybody. Mike, I might be truthful, but I'm not going to tell you the truth about what's going on behind the scenes with me, Kelly, Richard, and Rudy. Hell no.

[02:03:32] You know, except I told Sean at the end, I was like, God, Sean, we're sure were some way to keep you. I really did. I wanted to keep Sean then and get Kelly out. I didn't care at that point. Then I, my vipers were on Kelly, not so much Richard anymore. And, uh, there was no way there was just, there was just no way, you know, we tried, we did when Colleen left, we knew it was kind of, it was over with, you know, cause that would have been a voting block.

[02:03:59] So did you and Kelly ever patch things up over the years? Well, we, we talked after it, like human beings, you know, we were cordial to each other, but no, she hates me. Yeah. She, but I wish her all the best, whatever, you know, went on. I know she went and played another year. She did. She played another season. Yeah. She played on survivor 31. She played. And what was that at? It was, uh, it was in Cambodia. It was survivor. Second.

[02:04:28] Wow. Yeah. That would have been cool trip. It would have been a better. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been a wild trip. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we have, I don't even know. And then she, yeah. So, yeah. She always was a kind of a quiet girl though. She was a quiet girl. She was, she liked to laugh and she liked to build things. Yeah. She did. She was, yeah.

[02:04:57] And she was, yeah, she was, she was very, but she was, she was, she was only 24, but she was older than 24 internally, more so older than the 24s you see nowadays. Sure. You know, she, she had grown up fast, I'm sure. Uh, but yeah, no, I haven't. I did talk to Sean. Oh, I think about, oh, how many years ago now? Seven, eight years ago. Yeah. When I moved down to Florida, I called Sean and it was so great to talk to him.

[02:05:27] It was like a day hadn't passed between us. I love Sean. I'm like a brother. I love Sean. And he's doing so well. Finally, finally grew up. I teased him. I said, he finally grew up. I mean, he's doing like, he's down in Miami. He's like a head. He's on the board of like two big fat hospitals and he's doing his neurologist thing. I'm sure, you know, on the side, which is amazing because we, we absolutely know like, like my new part about how the brain actually operates.

[02:05:54] And I'm sure to this day, Sean is trying to educate himself and figure it out. Yeah. And he's got a couple of little girls, got a couple of little girls. They're just gorgeous, you know? And, and he still had his New York accent. Thank God. I hope he never loses that. How did you like his alphabet strategy voting? Oh, that's funny. He's a brilliant guy because he's such a nice guy. That was his way of doing it. And that would work for him. He was there. I'll never forget.

[02:06:23] We actually built a bowling alley because of Sean on our beach. It was great. And that was all Sean's idea. And then he made the idea. And of course, then we implemented cutting the bamboos a certain time and do a bowling alley. And then one day, Sean, I don't know how many of us was sitting there. Quite a few might've been five or six of us sitting around them. And Richard was probably off fishing because Richard didn't like to spend a lot of time with the camp because he was just into himself. So Sean told us about a book he wrote.

[02:06:53] He told, he read, like, he told us the story of his whole book. And we're all sitting there memorizing. It was about a cop and investigations and action. And we're like, Sean, when you get off the island, you need to write that book because we would buy it and actually read it and be enthralled with it. So I don't know if he ever wrote the book or not. It was amazing hours spent with him. Um, yeah, I teased him all the time. Cause he was a bit of a doofus, the alphabet theory, because he was a doofus.

[02:07:23] Cause he was so nice. Yeah. So, um, speaking of writing books, you know, Rob is a number one bestselling New York. What is it? New York times writer. Yeah. No, I wouldn't say number one. Um, but, um, yeah, a, a, I wouldn't know. Yeah. And you're, you're in the book, Sue. You are in the book. Yeah. I wrote a book about the history of survivors, Sue. And did you do that? Yes. And yeah.

[02:07:50] And, and, uh, of course, how could we write a book about the history of survivor and not talk about the number one. Yeah. The number one moment. And I gave, I gave them, I gave them their show. Yeah. I gave them their show. But Sue, I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. It was, you know, between the, it is your, like you say, you're starved. Your high, your awareness is all heightened. Your emotions are heightened. Why do you think yogi's fast? Because they can get to the next level.

[02:08:17] And then actually I said the end on 39 days, anybody that's there after 32 days, you are at the next level. You are working in a world. You have no idea that you've ever been in unless you've done DMT or whatever, all these other dope. Um, you never done that, you know, between that and then, uh, and then, uh, being like, I couldn't hit them. God, you know, if I could just gone up and slap them each, I'd been fine, but I couldn't

[02:08:45] have a, I decided I'm going to lash you with my tongue. I get that, that lashing. Probably my dad was so nice and so smart, such a good auto mechanic and father raised my mother. Thank God she was a bad cop in the family, you know, and she very cynical of people and even her own kids. And so I suppose part of that cynicism is buried in me and, uh, doesn't come up much,

[02:09:14] but when it does, oh boy, I am. So I called it, you know, as a bitch, but at the bitch, you stand for a babe in total control of herself. So I had to, I had to, and I felt good. I felt relieved. It took the load off of me and I was done with it. I didn't care what happened then. And I'm sure I was like, yeah, I'm sure all these people are going to hate me. And they did. All those youngsters were like, Oh my God, how could you say that? Oh my God. You know, how could you say that?

[02:09:42] Well, get, get real because you're going to get in a job someday and somebody's going to tell you something you ain't going to like. So maybe I gave you a warmer upper. So, so, I mean, you're such a storyteller just today, all the stories. I mean, you could write a book. It would be fascinating. You know, this is, I matter. I can't, I can tell a story verbally, but to sit there and write, I get too, nah, I probably get too worried about details. And then like, what are you going to write about?

[02:10:12] You know, like it's like, ah, I'm still going. My story is still going. So maybe in the end, cause like I said, I'm going to spend, I'm hoping I'll go back here in six months of Florida, which is a plan. The plan's working out great. Actually we jumped the year ahead. Thank God things are working out. You know, his hand will come down and I'll get little favors. I never get the big, big favor, like a big hunk out, like a winning lottery ticket or anything, which is fine.

[02:10:40] But I get little favors and I get them every day. And I thank God for them. It's just stupid stuff with the truck. Like, oh, thank God you had that. That truck wasn't parked where it was when I got in here. Cause I'd never been able to back in and stuff like that. But little favors over your head. That's just wonderful because I'm going to, I'll get with the horses and the fur babies and I'll probably never stop working. Oh, you got to retire. No, I don't. You did live with Regis. So you've talked to an interviewed and met a whole lot of people.

[02:11:09] I wanted to know who the most fascinating person that you've met through your whole experience with Survivor. And I was also curious, you actually interviewed President Bush, right? Oh, I'm a survivor. I'm Regis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't even know. Yeah. Yeah. I was reading this person that you met with all your, uh, survivor experience. Oh, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. And people probably like, Oh, I hate her. Um, Bush thing was really cool. They prep me.

[02:11:37] They think, yeah, he was a nice guy, but I didn't care less. Cause he's a Bush. But, um, yeah, it was funny because I asked a candidate Bush then. He was candidate. Candidate Bush. It was like, I was more. Yeah. I mean, they're doing makeup. And all of a sudden these German shepherds are coming in. I was more enthralled with the dogs and the guy, the candidate. So I had made up cause they gave me some information on him like the night before. So I was like, okay, I'm going to ask him two questions.

[02:12:07] Um, cause I was like, I know you ain't going to get a bunch of time. So I asked him two questions. Cause they showed the picture of him and his pony. I'm like, do you remember that pony's name? And he remembered that pony's name. Anybody who has a course always remembers her first pony's name. Mine was named sugar. God, I love that horse. I'm bald when my mom made me sell her finally. Oh, it just killed me. But then the other question was prudent because I, everything I tried to play dumb redneck, but I'm really not. I actually study history, old history, repeated history.

[02:12:37] And I'm like, Oh, Bush is talking about letting us take 10% of what we put into social security into a separate savings, which he really wanted to do. But of course Congress won't let them because then that would take away from their honeypot of the social security. So it never happened. And had he back in what year did he win? 2000. That was 2000. Had he back in 2000 to say 2002, they would have got it implemented. Yeah.

[02:13:04] Me, you T bird would have been able to put 10% into the fake stock market. Who cares? It's doing good. Um, we could, we would have been like banked. We would have been banked. You know what I mean? And, and everybody's sitting good, but they wouldn't let it happen. And he wanted to though. So I got it. I give him credit for that. But the most interesting person I met was probably, uh, that Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump. Okay. Okay.

[02:13:35] Yeah. Rosie. Rosie is a very like me. She's very in your face. Very honest. Very to the point. Love Rosie. Love. Not that she gave me a car or anything. She's just, her energy is great. Okay. Yeah. So then I'm, she gives us that trip to go to Australia, a bunch of us. So I go to Australia with Tim. That was wild. That was fun. But now as I'm going to go on the trip, I'm forced to actually cut the trip two days short

[02:14:02] because she's, that was, she was interviewed. She did the finale show. The only time Jeff gave up the crown, the finale show to do it in a central park in New York and it was a, it was to show, uh, you know, strongness after nine 11, like, Hey, you're not knocking us down. We're not stopping. So they did. That was the first event done in central park after nine 11 and it was done live. And Rosie's like, I want you here. I want you to be with me on the start.

[02:14:32] Cause I want to do B roll with you. I'm like, Oh my God, how can I turn her down? She gave me the car. She gave me a trip. Okay. And I am like jet lag. And we go to central park and they put it. Yeah. It was nice. They put me up in like a, one of those things you can look out on it. Yeah. And so a room. And, uh, so we go to do it and I go to meet her. I'm in her room, her dressing room for maybe minute and a half. We talk about what we're going to do minute and a half. This chick knows her what's on.

[02:15:00] And she goes, we're going to introduce, we're going to do like, like a wrestling thing. Like, and so we, so now everybody's got assigned seats. Okay. At central park, it was called or getting the sun's going down. It's good. I wasn't thinking I didn't have a jacket. I only had on a little short sleeve shirt. It was sheer material. Everybody sitting guy assigned seats. Well, right. Fifth row back about was Donald Trump and Yvonne and his wife.

[02:15:29] What's her name now? Melania. Melania. Melania. Melania. And there's two empty seats next to him. Well, that's me and Tim's seat. Okay. So I do the B roll. I'm not thinking about this as I'm doing B roll with Rosie. We do the B roll and I could feel it when you do something. Not that I'm a camera hoard, but I did enough in front of the camera. When I do something in front of the camera, I know it's good. You can feel it. You feel it. You feel it through your whole body. So I did this with Rosie. I'm like, Oh God, that was awesome. That was good.

[02:15:59] She got her shot. This is going to be great. I go sit on the audience with Tim next to that. I sat next to Melania and then Donald Trump sat next to mine is a right side. I said, and Tim sat to my left side. I am freezing. Well, now Donald had given his overcoat to Melania because she's cold. He sees I'm cold. He gives me his suit jacket to wear for the whole show. I didn't say much. I didn't say, but thank you. He's like here.

[02:16:28] And I'm like, I'm going to accept it because I'm dying. And this is great. And he's, he's a guy that's tough enough. He's got longer sleeves than me. So good. And, uh, let me wear his jacket. And after it was over with a return it to him and said, thank you very much, Mr. Trump. And that was it. But, uh, yeah, Rosie and it's too bad. They got in a pissing match. You can feel the rift. There are two of a kind, you know, um, it was, so it was, it was, it was good.

[02:16:58] Everybody. Yeah. But yeah, it was, uh, it was wild. Chuck Norris. I met Chuck Norris. Yeah. Because so less movement. So I absolutely would. I like, he didn't know when he'd meet me that anything I said to him was basically a dig on him because he was, he was pretty much at those after parties. He was pretty much on a buzz when he, by the time he met you, you know what I mean? Cock eyed up a little bit on the, on the liquor. And he's like, come on, come on.

[02:17:28] I gotta meet you somebody. I'm like, okay. So he goes and meet me Chuck Norris, which of course I wasn't. I liked Chuck. Chuck was just, I only met him for a couple minutes, but the nicest guy ever. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, yeah, it was, it was funny. It was funny. Like he had dragged me halfway across the thing to go, go meet his buddy Chuck. And, uh, then I was like, yeah, that's Bob because I, I'm a, like a Bruce Lee fan. Those kinds of people that do that jujitsu and the karate. I have so much respect for them.

[02:17:56] So much respect, boxing boxers. I have ultimate respect for. Cause remember me and Kelly were going to get in the ring and box the hell out of each other. I don't remember that. Yeah. So they set us up. They set us up. She's in California at the time. I'm over here in Vegas early. Cause it was early two thousands and baseball was going to go on strike was on strike. Okay. And they were doing those boxes matches. Remember the Partridge kid where it gets a Brady kid. Uh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:18:25] They gave us trainers and literally we both fell into training. Like we were going to be pro boxers. And in the meantime, I could do it because I had the juice shop. Okay. The smoothie shop. So my, I could fluctuate my schedule and, uh, you train. Oh my God. You train like three times a day, four days a week. And then two times a day, two days a week.

[02:18:54] And then one time a day, one day a week, something like that. But the morning, the morning was a couple mile run. And then in the afternoon, you might go to the gym and spar and then take a rest. And then after that, go to the gym and pump iron. And this is on and on. When I first started, I literally, my thighs were so, I could hardly walk or sit down. I was so sore. And after doing that, and we did it for like six months, we did, we were like eating and

[02:19:23] going to be boxers did it for six months. And then they called it off because baseball, uh, ended the strike. I guess this is funny. Somebody told me that was at my training gym was in the same gym out in LA. Cause that's how these guys roll in LA where Kelly was training. And Kelly had a big picture of me up on the, um, heavy bag. Yeah. So, Oh, Sue. Oh, I said for you. I'm just, I'm asking Sue this.

[02:19:51] So Sue, I've heard you say that, um, this quote, this is a quote, me and Kelly don't belong in playboy. Cause we've got tattoos. We belong in hustler. And I heard Larry Flint pays more in quote. Oh my God. That was just me being a smart ass. So yeah. All right. So why were tweezers your luxury item tweezers? Oh, because I was worried about like hair. I'm 38.

[02:20:16] I was worried about black having like, you know, having the eyebrows like come together. I was so like, that was the only thing in the, in the TV thing land. I didn't want it was like, Oh God, I don't want my eyebrows. So I take them and I just be like, you know, randomly talking to somebody. We'd be just fucking away, but they came in handy because we actually, uh, pulled some tweezers. We use them to pull slivers out of people and stuff. Yeah. So they came in handy. I mean, we couldn't have anything useful.

[02:20:44] They can't let you bring anything useful. This just had to be stupid. All right. So Sue one word to describe Jeff Probst. Jeff Probst. Oh my God. Now one word. After I see him now, I guess there's one word Botox. I'm sorry. I don't think that before. I don't think we've been. It's creepy. Yeah. I think you and Jeff are pretty, I think pretty close to the same age.

[02:21:15] Are we really? I think so. I don't know. I don't, I don't keep track, but yeah. Yeah. You know, maybe, I think I heard, didn't they did. I seen a snippet somewhere where they're thinking the next crew coming in on 51. There's going to be somebody in it. That's going to have a chance to replace Jeff seat. He said that you're very tapped into. He said there's somebody in this new season that he could see replacing him. Yes. Yeah.

[02:21:46] Okay. He's starting to psych himself out to finally step down, which would be good. What is his birthday? So his birthday is in is November 4th, but he is November 4th, 1961. Oh, same year as me. Yeah. I'm just a little bit older. Right. Same age. I'm just a little bit older. Yeah. By months, by months. Yeah. I know we have, I could talk to you for. I know. I can talk with you, Teresa. Cause how is that?

[02:22:16] Grand baby. How is that? How's that grand baby? Great. Thank you so much for asking Sue. All right, Rob. So talking to you today is been a highlight. However, hold on. Yes. Oh my God. All right. So yeah. We'll do it at five. When I retire out of the truck, we'll get, we'll hook back up. Okay. And I promise you, I will have no Botox in my face. Sue, what do you, or Teebird, what are you doing? You've, you've opened the bottle of champagne.

[02:22:46] Absolutely. This is. Oh my God. Good for you. So Sue, get your glass. Rob, get your glass. Yeah. I have, I have a potato vodka. Yeah. Oh no. That's nasty. Yeah. No way. Sue. Here's the 65 years of living life on your own terms. Thanks for showing us.

[02:23:09] Um, what it means to play with heart and passion and that you don't have to win to be legendary. May your torch burn right through all your adventures in the years to come. Oh, Teresa. You're so nice. You make me want to cry. I love you, Teresa. I love you. Hey, thanks for, and now, so now this is good though.

[02:23:34] Cause now Teresa can finally get off my ass because she's been bugging me for, uh, what? Four years. She's been through a lot with me. She knows things about me that you, we won't even cover here. Well, actually more years than that. It took, it's probably been almost six years. And then my husband will remember the day I came in with this letter where I put it. It's here. It's here. I'm like, baby, you're not going to believe this. Look, cause you had your little name up there and the return address.

[02:24:04] So anyway, so it is such a pleasure. And Rob, this is the last thing that one of the things that Sue had written in her letters where she's again, she's very old soul. Um, but she wrote this and I kept this because it's means a lot. You said T bird life is never meant to be an easy road. Most time it's tough, but pulling through grows a strong trunk. So see if a tree has a drought year, it really helps to make it stronger.

[02:24:34] That layer of growth is then, but very tough fiber. We are all just like a tree of life. End quote. Oh, that's so true. That's so true. I get down. I get down closer to you. I'm not going to be all that far from you. In the trucking world. You know that we're going to hook up one day. Oh yeah. And even though I'm not a drinker, I'll definitely share a glass of wine with you. Just because. Excellent. I love it. I love it. Okay. So much. Okay.

[02:25:04] Thanks for being here and doing what you're doing. Yes. So great to see you. I can't, I think it's been, I feel like the last time I really talked to you was I think 2005. I saw you at the, they had like a Fox reality channel launch party and it was, it made my night that you were there. And so it's amazing. Oh yeah. It is. It's an, it's been a while. It's been a while ride, you know, like, yeah, but thanks for filling me in. I didn't know.

[02:25:33] I actually still hold the top spot. You guys all have the best of time with all your kids. And remember what I told you, tell the kids and Teresa, you do this too. Now the youngster, you figure it out. You figure it out. All right. Sue Hawk. Thank you so much. Thank you guys. It's been wonderful. Love ya. Bye. All right. T bird. There you have it. There was Sue Hawk. How about that? How about that? Where do you go from Sue Hawk? Where do you go? I don't know. I don't know.

[02:26:04] Everybody. Okay. Everybody good. Good. Yeah. So, so Rob, again, I thought about how badly I wanted Sue Hawk all these years, especially when I knew we had developed a friendship. Yes. But it, it, I enjoyed the friendship. I enjoyed, she's very philosophical of everything she would write to me or text to me. And I thought she's such a fascinating. Yeah. One of a kind. One of a kind.

[02:26:30] And so I was just grateful and blessed to have her friendship that we had developed the friendship when she mentioned about wanting to do the, to the podcast. Cause I'd never mentioned it for quite a while. I never mentioned it again. I was thinking what this may be my retirement. Where do you go from Sue Hawk? However, if you'll keep me, we move on. There's still more survivors out there. T bird. There are. Yeah. Sue Hawk is, is, is, is again, one of a kind.

[02:27:00] Yeah. So I hope the fan, her fans and her listener, the listeners will enjoy her as much as I enjoy. And I think this was an unforgettable interview. Yes. T bird. All right. What else are you working on now? I don't know. I'm kind of, I've been so anxious in a good way about doing this. And I couldn't go past thinking what's after this. Yeah. This has been on the calendar for a while. So we'll figure out what's going to come up next. T bird.

[02:27:29] Where can people keep up with you? I think it's at T bird Cooper. Yeah. Any ideas, any ideas, please text me, message me and I'll get right on it again. Like I told Rob, I like to, for us to find people that are off the grid that people haven't seen or haven't heard from maybe people that aren't like Sue that are kind of moving around from state to state periodically. We can find somebody a little more grounded, but if not, that's okay too. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for joining us for talking to T bird. Take care. Everybody have a good one. Bye.

[02:27:59] Bye. Bye.

[02:28:43] You're here, Vyde. Do you believe in the ThroughOULD? Says the most beautiful flowers from Athens. And where do you grow? And puedes? But you just want to see? Sure, for sure. I hope you. So, well, I can see if you日 will be a better one day. And that's all the other day. I hope I think it's the most beautiful flowers. In other things.