tough guys

Somehow the memory never seems to fade: You’re at school, standing by your locker, staring at this tough guy and wondering what makes him so tough. You must have looked at him the wrong way because he swaggers in your direction, gets right in your face. With his testosterone in overdrive, he flips the spit curl away from his thick forehead, lets go of the nubile girl draped around his arm and says, “You got a problem-boy?”

You can’t match his stare. “I don’t have a problem, not with you. Moose.” Your cowering is all the respect he needs. He’s intimidated you and he knows it, proven his manliness at your expense. He grabs his girl and struts into me sunset.

Decades later, you’ll continue to wonder what happened to that high-school tough guy who lived by his fists. If he’s not dead or in jail, how has he fared in these days of gender-blending and sensitive men when the tests of toughness are mainly nonphysical? Where do tough guys go when they grow up?

In high school, Tom Snyder thought he had the world pretty much figured out. Things were black or white, right or wrong, his way or not at all. Some things were worth fighting for, and if he had to throw a punch to make his point, to stand up for what he felt was right, then so be it.

As early as elementary school, Thomas had learned there was no reason “to accept intimidation.” He was the new kid on the block, the pudgy one who got taunted and teased. When he realized he could hit back a lot harder, punch a lot truer, pick on those who had picked on him, he gained a certain acceptance. ’’Even if I knocked the hell out of someone, they got over it,” says Snyder. “Today, people retaliate with drive-by shootings. Back then, you shook hands and respected each other, even if you lost.”

Even in rumbles there were rules to be followed, a right way and wrong way to fight. “I never lost control, never fought angry,” says Snyder. “And I tried not to hurt anyone real bad.’’

Still, his unyielding notions of fair play marked him as rebellious and got him into big trouble. When his teacher made a girl cry in class, he grabbed a ruler out of the teacher’s hand and chased her down the hallway with it. Tom also picked a fight with his football coach, claiming he didn’t practice what he preached. “There were very few gray areas in my adolescent mind,” says Snyder.

Only by fighting in the Vietnam War did Tom finally learn that the world wasn’t so easily divided into good and bad. He questioned whether the war was worth fighting, watched others die for something they didn’t believe in. Yet he matured in Vietnam and realized “there’s a whole lot more to life than a street fight in Oak Cliff.”

Snyder, who now manages a waste treatment facility for the water department, claims that he hasn’t been in a fight since the war. Because he’s a bureaucrat, Tom says, the toughest thing he has to make is a decision.

He was .in obedient child, smart and quick-witted, even went to church without much fuss. But once in junior high, George Gregory began to change. He wanted to be rebellious, unlike his sisters whose “good girl” reputations had haunted him long enough. Says Gregory, “I decided to go for bad.”

He picked fights for no apparent reason, hurting kids and enjoying the recognition he received. “1 loved it when someone would say, ’That Negro is dangerous.’ ” He was drawn to a group of running buddies, an informal gang who stuck together, fought together, broke a lot of laws together. “We mostly fought kids from other high schools,” says Gregory. ’’We took offense if they violated our turf, crashing our parties or dating our girls.”

Too often, the trouble got serious and someone would pull a gun at a football game, a knife at the Good Luck Drive-ln. Unlike some of his friends, George stayed ahead of any serious trouble, avoiding jail and escaping death- but just barely. “I walked right up to the edge,” recalls Gregory. “But something always pulled me up short and wouldn’t let me cross the line.”

After a tour of duty in Vietnam, he returned to Dallas to raise a family, finding success as a painting contractor. But he was still fighting, at war with himself, and he turned to alcohol hoping to find some peace. His “spiritual awakening,” as he calls it, didn’t occur until 10 years ago, when he “accepted the Lord” into his life. He surprised many when he turned to the ministry and eventually was called to his own church, Johnson Baptist in Oak Cliff. “I still have angry feelings,” says Pastor Gregory. “But for the most part. I’m finally at peace with myself.”

During his 25th high school reunion in 1989, 150 of his classmates, some of his old gang among them, came to his church and listened to Pastor Gregory deliver his Sunday sermon. “Back then, we always got away with so much,” he told them. “But the Lord was keeping us, holding us back because he had a better plan for our lives.”

When Fred Time began high school, he stood 4 foot 11 and weighed 120 pounds. He had survived the Holocaust in Germany and figured he could survive most anything, even the beatings he took at the hands of some South Dallas toughs who also happened to be Jew-haters. After school he walked blocks out of his way to avoid their jabs. “These guys were definitely dangerous,” recalls Time.

Fred took up boxing, became more physically confident and gained quite a tough guy reputation himself after he won a regional boxing championship. Then, one by one, he caught the boys who had tortured him before. “I knocked the crap out of most of them.” he explains. “It didn’t really prove anything, but it sure felt good.”

Although Fred was skinny, called “The Bone” by his friends. he was tenacious as hell, taking on big guys, bullies who would punch themselves out while he kept coming back for more. He was a survivor, jumping into any fray where he could fight the good fight for the weak, the underdog.

Fred was every Jewish mother’s nightmare: a nice Jewish boy who wasn’t so nice. “They didn’t really want me dating their daughters.” says Fred. “It didn’t help that I was also poor.” But when someone phoned and needed help, Fred came right over. “I never picked fights, but I always threw the first punch.” says Time. “Why let somebody walk you into the gas chamber?”

It only followed that Fred, as a lawyer, involved himself in the early civil rights movement, helping to integrate Dallas parks and restaurants, serving as legal counsel for the Black Panthers and representing Vietnam war protesters. “I still fight for other people.” says Time. “I’ve just learned there are better ways to solve problems than with your fists.”

Anyone who ever saw James Helwig fight remembers his absolute abandon in the ring. Flurries of punches and raw animal energy earned this tireless boxer three Golden Gloves championships while he was in high school. His flat-out meanness in the ring made him a beacon to high-school tough guys everywhere.

James grew up distant from his own father who, he felt, begrudged him too much. His father was frugal, providing the basics, but nothing more. James wanted more than the JC Penney blue jeans and T-shirts that comprised his back-to-school wardrobe. “I had a ghetto mentality,” admits Helwig. “I was angry I didn’t have a nicer house or a faster car. Nothing seemed fair.”

Much of that anger stayed in the ring, but some spilled over into school, enhancing his tough guy reputation. Most kids didn’t (dare challenge him, wanted no part of him. For those foolish few who considered taking him on, James first described the length of the hospital stay they might plan on.

Boxing was James’ way to pull himself up. He turned pro after college, hoping to make some fast money. But he didn’t get the right handling and needed a manager who would have kept him fighting more often. Though he ranked 42nd in the world after only three years, James hung up his gloves, unable to make a living in the ring.

After a bout as a bouncer at the old Wellington’s, and some barroom brawling on his own time, James went into the trucking business. Only in 1983, when his son was born, did he take his job seriously, putting in the hard work necessary to survive financially. “My son means everything to me.” says He]wig. “I didn’t want him to grow up shopping at JC Penney’s.” Today, with more than 1 (X) drives and rigs, James Helwig and Son, Inc. is thriving. “I’m able to make a better life for my son,” says Helwig. “Why make him fight the same battles that I did?”

Tom Price looked like he had been spliced from a James Dean movie.

He had just moved with his family from Des Moines and held fast to the tough guy ways that had served him well as a member of the Southside Sewer Rats. “If anyone at Highland Park made fun of the way I dressed,” recalls Price, “I’d just bust them in the mouth.”

Not that he could afford the clothes, cars and lifestyle that seemed the birthright of most everyone else in the Park Cities. His father was a milkman, a former boxer who bred toughness into his kids with his own fists, if need be. “I was required to fight,” says Price. “If I walked away from a fight, my father would beat me up instead.”

Tom needed to prove his worth without money, so he demanded respect by beating it out of people. He became known for his quick fists and fast feet, striking first, kicking as well as punching, doing whatever it took to fell guys twice his size. “I had no fear,” says Price.

Only after a stint in the Marines did he realize that gaining respect had little to do with pounding someone’s face against the pavement. “I learned the way to gel respect was by going to school,” says Price. Fighting the odds, he got his GED, went to college, then law school, learning how to think on his feet, rather than with them.

Price even ran for judge to win me respect for which he had always hungered. “It came with the job, and I didn’t even have to throw a punch.” Yet when his black robe and the gavel don’t keep people in line, Price, at times, resorts to his old tactics: staring down a criminal defendant, showing no fear. “It seems to calm them, keep things more orderly,” says Price.