I was surfing the Web, as usual, and discovered that Meredith (the old guy) is a veteran of the U.S. Army and was a member of the U.S. Army Old Guard, and was a guard of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, DC.
The following letter is posted on the Old Guard Society's webpage, and is interesting for AR fans, atleast imho.
http://www.tombguard.org/members.html
Dear friends....
Gretchen and I dropped out of sight for five weeks beginning November 15. Prior to that some of you heard that we had tried out for the CBS TV show known as The Amazing Race and made it to the finals...but that we had been "passed by the producers". It was an experience to get that far and we said so in an earlier email. Well, as it turned out ,we were NOT passed (that is another story in itself) but rather asked a couple of weeks later if we would come to Los Angeles for a "possible opportunity". We did and after a whole lot of near cloak and dagger stuff we were told we had made the Race...two out of 25,000 applicants!
From there our lives went into overdrive as we now had just two weeks to prepare...including buying whatever we determined we might need for such an adventure...at our expense! (This was the beginning of the "You figure it out folks. You won't get any more help from CBS phase). The world is a big place with a lot of different climates, etc.! Then there were physicals and shots for everything from cholera to Japanese encephalitis, etc. etc. Closing our house and getting bills paid for the next ???,etc., etc., etc. and a lot of other details like passport photos kept us at race pace and we had not yet begun the real challenge. By the time we reached our take off destination we were already tired and looking at each other in disbelief asking " what have we done???".
Well ,what we had done was to make our way into a group of VERY competitive young people who wanted the $1,000,000 first prize A LOT more than we did . At the time we had both agreed that we had probably been invited on the show to be the sacrificial two that would be looked upon as nice guys who would be quickly eliminated...after all it is a physical grind and we are more than 30 years older than the next oldest racing couple. What happens next will amuse and astound you (at least we think so...) so if you like that kind of TV, tune in CBS next Tuesday (Feb.8 at 9:00PM) for the final episode of the current race ...episode 6... where the competitors/cast of The Amazing Race 7 will be announced. If you don't want to stay up that late and are still interested, tune in The Early Show on Feb.9. The real thing... TAR 7... will be aired on March 1.
We took so long to let you in on this amazing event in our lives because we were bound by contract ( allot of 'em) not to say anything until we were given the go ahead. Of course some of it leaked a little here and there but ...we are now out and it is one great big' huge relief to be able to tell our friends what has happened to us. The suspense and secret keeping has been awful...especially for Gretchen who has been known to articulate her views/observations, given the opportunity (smile).
So, there you have it. We have no idea of how we will be portrayed...Dumb and dumber? Mom and pop? Mr. and Mrs. ASAP? Or a couple of lunatics who shoulda stayed in their Lazy Boys and watched rather than been TV like the rest of the normal world. We will find out right along with the rest of you willing to see us make fools of ourselves. It should be fun. We hope so. Really... you've got to laugh at the whole crazy thing when you think about what actually happened ...there's a sit com here, believe me..
Take care...root for us. We will tell you more...if you can stand it... when the producers give us another green light.
Meredith Smith