"I, Tonya" - My Perspective

I recently saw the movie "I, Tonya" and it brought back a lot of memories for me. I recall that I had an obsession with her that I now realize was likely Asperger-based. When this happens, I can never adequately explain why I may feel so strongly about someone or something, so this results in a lot of people, including my friends, questioning my behavior (at least to themselves).

It all started in January of 1994. After Nancy Kerrigan was attacked, there was a lot of news coverage. I watched much of it because I was working for News Monitoring Services at the time. The fingers of the media started pointing at Tonya Harding almost immediately. This was actually the first time I had heard of either one of them. (I was so engorged in my position at the Hillcrest Cinemas that I didn't even pay attention to the 1992 Winter Olympics until the closing ceremony. My roommate at the time, Ped, had been watching and was talking to a friend on the phone regarding a comment by an announcer saying, "We'll see you in two years!" He was trying to explain that the Winter Olympics would happen again in 1994 and we would no longer have the Summer and Winter games during the same year. I think it took his friend two years to catch on.)

I didn't know what to think about Tonya Harding. I was fairly certain that she had something to do with the attack, but after learning so much about her in such a short amount of time, I couldn't help but identify with her. As I've covered in this blog before, I certainly felt like other people were purposely going out of their way to keep me from succeeding and for no other reason than they just didn't like me.

But more than anything else, I wanted to see if I could get an autographed photo of Tonya Harding.

However, I had no idea how to accomplish this. One day, one of the newscasts I was monitoring had an interview with a woman with the initals "ES." She was identified as being with the Tonya Harding Fan Club. I figured that a fan club would probably be the best way I could get my hands on an autographed photo. I wrote down the woman's name. I took a chance and called Directory Assistance in Portland, OR. I gave the name of the woman. I was given a phone number for someone with that name in a smaller town outside Portland. I called it. I got an answering machine that started, "You have reached the phone number for ES and the Tonya Harding Fan Club." The rest of the outgoing message described the information you needed to leave on the machine in order to get details about the club sent to you. I remember that when I left my message, I was on the verge of cracking up because this was really happening and I was really doing this. I wondered if they could tell I was restraining my laughter and were not going to send me anything. (No doubt other people left nasty messages.)

A few days later, a letter arrived in the mail. I could get a one year membership for $10. In return, I would get a membership card, the Fan Club newsletter and a Tonya Harding pin. But it didn't say anything about being able to order other merchandise. I decided this was still the best path to getting that autographed photo. I sent off a money order for the $10 and got my card, pin and newsletter about a week later. I was ecstatic! The card had the Fan Club President's name stamped on, but everything else was hand-written.

(I should point out that I've decided not to use the Fan Club President's actual name in this article. But it is rather easy to find out who it was.)

I got all of this before the Winter Olympics. There was so drama going on, you couldn't keep track of what was going on at any given moment. There were reports that she was being cut from the Olympic team, reports that she was going to go after all, reports that she could get pulled from the team even while the Olympics were going on. I was getting emotionally invested in this, more than I ever would have believed.

I found out what happened in the final showdown before it aired on TV because of me doing my job and it being discussed on the noon newscasts. I still watched it and it was rather heartbreaking to see what happened. I was still a fan.

The next Fan Club newsletter that came out gave me exactly what I was looking for: An opportunity to buy an autographed photo. (I guess Tonya had plenty of time on her hands to sign photos for her fans.) I sent in the order form with a $20 money order. It took more than a month, BUT I GOT THE PHOTO! However, I could not tell 100% if she had signed it or if the signature was just printed on. (And even worse, with the busy background, you can't tell right away that it's autographed.) I still treasured it.

In addition, the newsletter included a poem by ES titled, "Tonya's New Day." It was basically about remaining optimistic in the face of adversity. I was inspired to use the poem as a basis for lyrics for music I had written. I recorded the song in the studio and sent a copy to ES. I did credit the song as being based on her poem. She never really responded to me directly, but she did mention me and the song in the next newsletter and included some of the lyrics. She also included my address in the event someone wanted to purchase a copy of the song, which was on my cassette release. No one ever ordered it. I wasn't surprised.

The Fan Club planned an event that would feature an opportunity to meet Tonya Harding. A special dinner was held in Portland. Even though I had a full-time job, I was struggling at the time (and barely squeaking by to purchase the Fan Club membership and autographed photo). This meant I couldn't go. But all of the Fan Club members were invited to send some kind words on 3" x 5" cards to express good feelings and they would be collected in a book to be given to her. I wrote a short poem titled, "The Lease." I later wrote music for the words and recorded the song for my CD release. This means I wrote and published TWO SONGS about Tonya Harding. You can't get any more fanboy than that.

After the event, I got ANOTHER autographed photo of her. And this time, I could definitely tell that it had an actual signature on it! (Whether or not it was her signature is up for debate.) I didn't have to pay extra for that.

Soon after that event, the Fan Club disbanded. (This means it expired before the date on my card.) Tonya decided to start her own Fan Club that she would be in charge of. Even though I joined that one, it just wasn't the same. I had come to acknowledge that she likely had a greater role in the attack than she was willing to admit.

Since then, I would see her pop up on TV from time to time. I watched the "reunion" between her and Nancy Kerrigan. I watched the "Celebrity Boxing." But I didn't see her promote the book in which she stated she was brutalized by Gillooly into keeping her mouth shut. Loyd had to tell me about that.

So now, with "I, Tonya," it's kind of cool to like her again. It doesn't justify what happened, but I don't feel like I have to keep this phase of my life secret anymore (because I certainly made no mention of it on my blog until now). However, it's still not something I'm going to tell new people about myself.

In the video embedded below, I give a couple of my initial reactions to seeing the movie. There was a lot more I wanted to say, but I didn't think anyone would pay attention to me for more than a couple of minutes. I do go into greater detail in my video description.

But do you want to know what the really weird thing is? (And I just found this out!) She gave birth to a boy about seven years ago. Her son's first name is the same as my real first name.