Survivor Skills.com - Loser Lodge: Richard Hatch

With deception and paranoia growing with each passing day, Survivor: All-Stars has been whittled down to the Final Four Chaboga Mogos. Feeling secure in his alliance with Rob and Amber, Tom Buchanan, the 48-year-old tribe member of Survivor: Africa from Rich Valley, Virginia, was shocked to hear his name read at Tribal Council. Big Tom had mistakenly thought Jenna Lewis, the 26-year-old castaway of Survivor; Borneo from Franklin, New Hampshire, was the target of the alliance, which sent him home in a four-to-one vote.

Shortly after seeing his torch extinguished, Big Tom rationalized, "Don't worry about me. If you can live with it, I can live with it. And I'm going to live with it happily ever after."

Final Words:

To come here and to play SURVIVOR: ALL-STARS is a dream come true for an old country boy like me. Number one, I've said it all along: to play with an elite group, of truly All-Stars…they're all good in their own way. It's just a game; I know that, but it's kind of hard to take when you play hard and get "whimwillied." I know that's part of the game.

But truly, truly, truly, I didn't consider myself an All-Star. I considered myself a player in a game, but when I got the call to be an All-Star, I felt like I was the eighteenth person they called, because they couldn't get ahold of some, and some wouldn't do it. For me just to make the picture and say that I was in that group is a proud moment. When I had a baby boy 21 years ago, that's the only moment I've been prouder of. Even though I got voted off fifth, I'm disappointed. Don't get me wrong: I'm disappointed. I thought I'd sneak around here and be down to the Final Two.

Everything pertaining to the game I've learned, and I've learned to close it off, because the game's over, I know that. But my son got to experience some of it, which is huge! I gave him another little gift of life, to be a part of something that was so important to me, and I got him involved. That was huge. It was like swimming in a fishbowl down there underwater. I've never been underwater with one of those [diving masks], never, and I didn't think they were going to let me. Nobody on that team knew how bad I sat over there every day wanting to get in that water. Actually, I was a little scared that I might get…I didn't know if I could swim well enough in it. But I just couldn't wait to see a fish.

The whole time out here has been a vacation for me, that I never had. I'm 48; I'm not going to be going around again; this was it for me. People that know my lifestyle realize how huge this is to me. People that live in a higher lifestyle, they have no idea. They go on vacation. Have you ever seen a farmer with a swimming pool, or who goes on a family vacation to the ocean? You don't. They don't. They're on the farm; they're working the cattle. They can't be gone. But I did it, and I did it for 36 days, and I'll take some friends with me. There's a lot of them that I wouldn't piss on them on fire right now, but I'll get over it. They made a bad judgement. They're going to realize that, and I hope I'm man enough to say, "I realize you did, I know you did, and it just cost me a million dollars. But you know what? We'll sweep it under the table, and we'll get over it."

The only regret that I probably had in the whole thing is, obviously, not letting other people know in my alliance how much turmoil I was going through, with other people trying to break me away, and that I wouldn't do. The other thing is that now I look back on it, letting Rob and them boss me so much. In any other situation, I would have bit him, that little young whippersnapper trying to boss me around, especially stuff that I knew what I was doing. It was all I could do, but I was doing it for the game. I'm still not sure that probably wasn't the best part. The only regret that I've got is that I'm not staying four more days. But I'm not going to cry over spilled milk. I truly, truly am glad to have "All-Star" in front of "Big Tom." I'm going to be a hootenanny dancer, I'm going to be jumping around! [dances]

Stats

Days on the Island: 36
Tribe: Chapera/Mogo Mogo/Chaboga Mogo
Total Votes Against: 4
Slip-Up: Big Tom's downfall was placing his trust in Amber and Boston Rob. "What you tell me, that's what I'm putting on that card," Tom promised Rob and Amber about his Tribal Council vote. He even allowed himself to be manipulated into an eleventh-hour fight with Rupert, which probably sealed his fate. At Tribal Council, Big Tom was true to his word, but Rob and Amber were not, and Tom was voted out four to one.
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