A Long, Blithering Personal Note from the Webmaster
- Week 11 -
We're going to veer off our usual sarcastic tone this week to chat a little more seriously about our experiences with producing this web site and about someone who may not have won a million dollars, but who is indeed a winner in every other sense of the word. (Ok, we may have a rather exaggerated photo of ourselves mourning on this page, but really... we're going to be rather serious this time around. Mostly.)
It was a cold day at the beginning of January when we learned that someone from our own area was going to be a contestant on Survivor II. Sean Fitzpatrick, a co-worker of mine, and I absolutely loved the show the first time around -- it was our main topic of conversation every week.
When we first learned that the name of the local contestant was Amber Brkich, our first impression was "Surely they left out some vowels... that last name can't be spelled right!" Shortly thereafter I started thinking about registering her name as a web site name. I thought it would be really fun to put a site together to root for her, and to use it as a place to publicly share our "insight," whether anyone wanted to hear it or not.
Then I started developing a conscience about the idea. I mean, registering the name of someone you don't know as a web address seems rather brash, don't you think? So I waffled about the idea for a bit, and then realized that if I didn't register it, somebody else would, and they may not have as good intentions as we did. So off we went to register "amber-brkich.com."
Amber's brother, Val, and his girlfriend Cassie. Not necessarily in that order.
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From the very beginning our intentions were to put up a site that would make Amber and her family proud, even though we didn't know any of them... and we were still debating whether someone left some important letters out of the spelling of her last name.
A few weeks after we put up the initial version of the site I received an e-mail from someone named Val Brkich. His note was no longer than a sentence or two and basically said "nice job" on the site.
After a few more e-mails back & forth, we learned that Val was indeed Amber's brother, and not someone posing to be a family member. (It's pretty easy to pose as somebody else on the Internet. For example, I'm really a 95-year-old woman named Edith.) Val told me that his family had regularly been visiting the site to see the comments from visitors. Despite the fact that people who claimed to be Richard Hatch, Madonna, Ghandi, etc., had posted messages on our "Root for Amber" page, some of them actually were legitimately from her family & friends... which made us quite proud to have given them a place to do so.
After a few weeks of establishing some credibility with the family (could we really be spies for the National Enquirer? That's the kind of thing they have actually had to worry about!), they invited us to watch the show with them at their home.
Val Sr., Cheryl, Amber and Nicole.
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When we walked through the door we couldn't have felt more welcome. Amber's dad, also named Val (who spends much of his time during their parties helping people find a place to park in their neighborhood), and her mom, Cheryl, made us feel as though we had known them for years. When we met Amber, it was not so much like meeting a celebrity -- it was more like meeting a cousin for the first time at a family reunion.
It was obvious upon meeting her that the editors at CBS were not really letting us see the "real" Amber. They portrayed her as a quiet follower, and little more. Well, for the record, she's a lot more. Amber is a beautiful girl -- anyone who has seen a photograph of her can tell that right away. But it's her inner beauty that brings more than 50 people to her house each week to cheer her on.
I'm not sure I know that many people, let alone being able to get that many people to cheer me on for something! Amber had to have awakened every Friday morning with severe writers' cramps since she spent a lot of time signing autographs for friends of friends, the classmates of daughters of friends, the cousins of friends of friends... you get the picture. Whether she was at her parties or at the mall, she has taken time out for virtually anyone who has wanted an autograph, or for people who have just wanted to shake her hand.
Amber has been happy to stand amongst a group of people (myself included) who present a barrage of wide-ranging questions about the show ("So what do you think of Jeff Probst, really?"). For questions she's allowed to answer, she gives great explanations and offers tremendously interesting stories about her experiences. When she is asked a question that she's not allowed to answer ("So, um, who wins the million?") she answers with nothing more than a grin and a friendly laugh.
Amber takes time out for 6-year-old fan Emmie.
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A couple weeks ago we took a 6-year-old girl named Emmie to Amber's house for the show. Emmie, who is quite a Survivor fan for a kindergartener, is the daughter of one of my wife's co-workers. Amber took time out to meet Emmie, to talk about school and so forth. It was obvious that one of Amber's greatest joys during the "Survivor experience" has been her newfound ability to make people happy by simply meeting them.
Friends of mine have been asking me if Amber's family knew how far she made it, and I can certainly verify that they had absolutely no idea which show was going to be her last. They didn't want to know, either. They wanted to enjoy the show like everyone else, without knowing ahead of time who was getting kicked out or who was going to walk away with scads of money.
Last week (4/5) Amber pulled a prank on people at the party by not showing up until the last minute. We learned that if she doesn't show up for the party, everyone knows that it's her night to be voted off the show. CBS transports the "booted" Survivors to New York City on Thursday afternoons so they can appear on The Early Show first thing Friday morning. So a lot of folks were quite bummed when they learned that she wasn't there. Everyone released an audible sigh when she walked in the door just moments before the show began! (Granted, there were those who wanted to strangle her at that moment, too...)
This week was a little different. Her parents were in on the joke last week, but they knew that she was gone for real this time. Her favorite clothes were missing from her room, her hair dryer and make-up were gone, and "the big suitcase" was missing from the basement. Not to mention that her boyfriend was missing, too. It was clearly going to be a sad night at the Brkich home.
As the events of the show unfolded, I watched faces grow longer and longer as everyone realized that Amber wasn't going to come bounding through the door to surprise everybody at the last minute. Mr. & Mrs. Brkich were obviously upset that the months of wondering about Amber's ultimate success on the show were coming to an abrupt end.
A recent bash at Amber's... dozens of folks pack the house every week.
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Several people shed tears as Jeff Probst snuffed out her torch. Amber's sister, Nicole, noted that the worst part of it was knowing that wherever Amber was watching the show tonight, she was almost definitely crying because she would feel that she somehow let everyone down.
Shortly after the show ended, the phone began to ring. Several newspapers contacted them for their reactions and the local TV station was there within half an hour. Then Amber called.
Sure enough, Amber's first thoughts were that she had somehow let her family down, if not by being ousted from the show, then by not having a chance to tell them that she was heading to New York (she left the house early in the day without being able to tell anyone).
Well Amber, there was nothing but pride in your house tonight. Your parents and your friends offered a toast (or two... or possibly three... well, we lost track) to your success in making it to the final six people on the show... to your future success... and to thank God for granting you safe travel.
In playing the game you made your family tremendously proud, your hometown and the entire region have been buzzing with excitement about your experience for months, and you have earned a lot of respect from people who have never met you.
You managed to advance a long way on the show without bad-mouthing people left & right, or being overly sneaky and deceptive.
In conclusion, Amber has a lot to be proud of -- a tremendously loving family, loyal friends and some incredible memories of an amazing experience. We'll look forward to seeing her on Hollywood Squares and Regis, etc. But we'll look forward even more to seeing her at the mall and around town because we know that even if she had won the big prize, she'd still be the same girl who would take time out to talk to anyone.
Insightful Commentaries:
The Amazing Race
Survivor: All-Stars
Survivor: Australia
