Owens History 02

Owens History 02

An idea of how weird or advanced I was. Remember, we're talking about Bedford, Indiana. This is a crude, rough country town. Only about 8,000 or 10,000 people. And it's okay. They had two gangs in that town. We're talking about 10 years old, 12 years old. There were two gangs. One was a torpy gang, real rough. Their mother was a bootlegger. She'd walk around town with bottles of homemade whiskey strapped under her brassiere and under her skirt. They were rough kids. I was one of the gang, and then there was another gang. Well, anyway, I had a little gang of my own. I had about five kids. We'd go out with me. We'd go out with these other gangs that beat up on us and throw rocks at us.

So one day, instantly, I'm sitting there wondering how I can combat these other two gangs. But instantly, I'm told how to do it. So I go downtown. I buy copper tubing. How old are you now? I’m in between 10 and, I think it’s around 10 or 11. I go downtown, I buy copper tubing. I get some money from cleaning. I go down and buy copper tubing and wooden matches and a package of needles at the dime store. And I’ve got some old playing cards at home. So I have the copper tubing cut into sections about five inches long. Matches and shoved the needle into one hand, cut a slot on the other end of the match, took little playing card pieces, made fins in opposite directions, and puffed them through the copper tubing.

And it was perfect. I had perfect bow guns. So I outfitted my gang, but either we all went out, I guess, to your effort. But sure enough, we ran into one of these tough gangs. They started throwing rocks at us, called us names. So we'd all out with our blowguns, start blowing things with needles. These needles aren't there and they all ran; these are the toughest kids in town, see so I realized instantly that uh, but this just came to me, I'd never done anything like that wasn't a mechanical uh-huh was that interesting yeah yeah. Did you tend to get have experienced a lot of violence in your childhood? Yeah, a lot uh, I had fist fights just about every day at school when I was a kid.

Well, see, my dad was, I wanted to be like my dad. He had been a champion fighter in the Navy. And he put gloves on me when I was about five. Five, I think, little gloves. He got a set of four little gloves. And I started practicing. Then he got me bigger gloves. I got six or seven. And I'd take on everybody. As a matter of fact, when I was eight years old, I was fighting kids 15 years old in the backyard with boxing gloves. Even though I knew I was going to get knocked around because I figured if I could even hold my own. With a boy twice my age, I could whip any kid my age. And in case I did, I did many times. Some of the toughest kids in town.

For instance, the first year I went to high school, I can still remember it. I went to high school carrying a book of Lassie with a picture of Lassie on the front cover. And I'm going down into the high school, and this great big guy, he must have been a high junior or a senior, put his hand against my chest and shoved me backward. I said, 'Look what the little creeps bring into high school. A sissy. This kid's a sissy. Look at that buck.' So I looked at him, and I said, 'I'll fight you.' And he laughed. He had a whole bunch of girls around him and other guys, you know. One of the torpedo boys I mentioned was there as his friend. They're tough kids. He laughed.

He says, 'You'll fight me?' I said, 'I looked up at him,' and I said, 'Yeah, I'll fight you.' I said, 'You be behind my house at 11:16, 16th Street. This afternoon after school, and I'll fight you.' Well, they all roared with laughter. After school, I went home. I told Dad about it. Dad happened to be home at that time. And he says, 'Okay.' So this whole Torpey gang showed up, Bill Torpey, John Torpey, all these tough guys showed up, came off the alley down behind our house, into our backyard. Dad came out, put the gloves on me, put the gloves on that tough guy. He said, 'Okay, go on.' Dad sat down on the steps and watched. And I just beat that fellow into a pulp.

He just thought he was tough. All I had to do was hit him once in the belly and then hit him, smash him in the nose so he bled copiously. And I said, 'I don't want to hurt you anymore.' Have you had enough? And he says, 'Okay.' He says, 'You win.' And these Tarpey guys were just astounded. They all came over and wanted to shake hands with me. And Dad came down off the steps with a baseball bat and a baseball glove. A baseball said okay, now we're going to have baseball come on you guys, let's choose size. Dad was a terrific psychologist; he knew instantly see that I made good points there at school, and uh, so he instantly got these guys, these kids to play ball well became friends. Well, that's the way it worked. Uh, I had an awful lot of that uh fighting going on.

But the funny part is, as I grew up and became expert with gun, knife, judo, my lord, you name it, I never did hurt anyone, never did shoot anybody, never did stab anyone. As a matter of fact, there were numerous occasions when I would have a gun and I'd be attacked. Once in Durham, North Carolina, I was attacked by a gang of kids in about their 20s. They all had knives. And they were arrested the following week for stabbing a pupil to death and put in prison. But this night, I was with my girlfriend, Pat, whom I later married, and this gang chased us up a dark street. And I said to Pat, I said, 'This gang's after us.' I said, 'Here, you hold a . 25 automatic.

If they get past me, I said, 'You get them.' And then I turned around and walked right back into the middle of them before they knew what I was doing. And they didn't expect that. They thought we were going to keep running away from them. Walked in the middle of them, grabbed the ringleader, whom I knew. And I told him, okay, I said, your friends here can kill me, wheels and eyes, but I said, I'll break your neck. I guarantee that. There's no way. I've got a judo move. I can break your neck instantly, even if they get me. Well, we stood there in an impasse for five or ten minutes. He didn't know what to do. The gang didn't know what to do.

And finally, a policeman walked up the other side of the street. All I had to do was yell for the policeman. So I told these five guys, I said, shut up. And I said, shut up. There's a cop across the street, just act like we're friends until he goes away. Well, they couldn't believe it, you know. So the policeman goes up out of sight. In other words, I'd done everything in accordance with what they thought. And so finally this leader tells him, he said, 'well, he could have called a cop on us.' He said, 'put your knives away, let's get out of here.' So they took off. Well, this sort of thing has happened a half dozen times in my life. It's very weird.

but i never did use a gun or a knife for anybody the only time i've ever used any real violence per se anybody was the time i took on two professional wrestlers at a nightclub called gay night i think it was a gay night he's down in houston texas and uh these these were professional wrestlers you know who out of new york who were appearing at the houston coliseum there and uh one of the wrestlers and i was a drummer in the nightclub and the the regular bouncer was off that night and uh And these wrestlers were threatening to beat up the band, telling the owner he was going to beat up the band. So the owner came over and got me. He says, Ted, my regular balance is off tonight.

Can you go over and talk? He says, you're smart. Go over and talk to those wrestlers and behave. So I went back. I got off the drums and went to the back of the place and talked to these wrestlers. They had a woman, women. And everything went fine. I talked to them a couple of minutes. We shook hands. Everything was great. And then a waitress walks up and asks them if they'd like anything else. This waitress had a little baby. She just had it about six months. And a brand new little baby. This wrestler just hauls off and hits this waitress right across the face as hard as he can hit her. And she reels backward. And so I just took about three or four steps backward.

And what I figured, told the wrestler to come out of the booth. And he straightened out, came out of the booth. And I hit him in the stomach, the edge of my fingers. And then as he bent over, I clipped him on the back of the neck. And he went down. He was out like a light. So I motioned for the other wrestler to come out, and he came sliding out of the booth. And then when I bent my knees, you've got to flex your knees in judo to get balance. He took one look at me and then sidled sideways along the wall and out the front door. That left the woman. The owner and I dragged this wrestler out. That left the woman. And she was the meanest of them all.

The owner and I went back and asked her to leave, and she came out scratching and clawing at our faces. So I had to get, what they call, a hand grab, it's an FBI move, hand grab on her, get her arm behind her back, and the owner picked her feet up, all right, held her shoulders, and we had to carry her out kicking and screaming. Well, then it was real funny because, well, this kind of violence, I mean, that's all I've had, just that right there. That's all I ever used my judo on anybody. Only time. But then something funny happened. This was about 10 o'clock in the evening or 10:30. But the owner comes up down to the bandstand where I'm drumming. He says, oh, I just got a phone call.

The wrestler's going to be outside waiting for you with a shotgun when you come out at 12 o'clock. That place closed up at 12. Well, the word got around the nightclub that there was going to be somebody with a shotgun waiting outside the front door. And at 12 o'clock, nobody would leave. The owner couldn't make the crowd leave. And it was against the law for him to stay open. So finally he came to me in desperation about 12:50. He says, 'Ted, you'll have to go out because I've got to get this crowd out of here.' I said okay, so I went out the front door, looked around, and saw that no, they weren't there. But then the crowd just poured out and rushed; that was one of the funniest things you ever saw.

Well, then there wasn't any, no, no, the wrestlers weren't there; it was just a bluff. But um, that is the only time that I've ever used my judo to hurt anybody. Where did you learn judo? Oh, I studied under Johnny Osako. Johnny Osako is one of the world's greats. He has, I think, an eight-degree black belt. Now, this is out of the Kodokwan in Japan. And he taught in Chicago. How do you spell that, Kodokwan? K-O-D-O-K-W-A-N, I think; Kodokwan, if I remember correctly. It was quite a long while ago. And I studied under him. And I got to be so good that he wanted to take myself and Art Broadbent, an English boy. who

is a regular tiger around the world and do exhibitions and take on others and his plan was we would train uh practicing our falls on concrete in below freezing weather naked this is johnny um he is so tough he has a bad leg and he he would line up 10 black degree men a black belt man he'd line up 10 black builders and take them on one at a time Johnny only weighed 130 pounds. And he has one leg that goes out on him once in a while. And when I was brand new studying under him, I was on the side of the mat there in Chicago. His leg went out on him about the second black belt. He threw the first one. Then he took on the second black belt, and Johnny's leg went out.

And I said to this kid next to me, I whispered, what's the matter with him? He said, well, his leg, it's gone out on him. So there he was fighting on one leg. So I called out to him. I was ignorant. I called out to him. I said, Mr. Asako, why don't you sit down and rest until your leg is okay? He turned around and gave me the most scornful look. He said, this is what this is all about. He says, I fight hurt. That's when you fight twice as strongly. You must learn this, Owens. You don't pamper a baby yourself. Then he turned around and took on all the rest of the black belters and threw them. With one leg injured or hurt. Oh, he was something else.

How old were you then? Let's see. Let's see now. I just married; I think it was about 1950, I think, or 51. Of course, I was born in 27, maybe 31, roughly there. I believe those were the years. It was funny how I met Johnny. My wife had just come into some money. She got $25,000 from her uncle who was a multimillionaire who owned most of the stock in the Hanover Bank in New York. Bentley. Bentley was his name. B-E-N-T-L-E-Y. He called us up there and gave her $25,000 for her birthday present when she was 21. And we rented this apartment in Chicago. And I saw this. I'd always wanted to learn judo, so I saw this. No, I looked it up, the yellow pages.

There's Johnny Osako's studio, Chicago Institute of Institute. I called him up. I said, 'I'm going to come over tomorrow to your studio, Mr. Osako, and I'm going to get a black belt.' I said, 'I don't care how much it costs. I'll pay you $1,000, $2,000, but I want to get a black belt.' And he laughed. He says, 'All right, you'll be over here tomorrow.' From the next day I go over there, it was the funniest thing you ever saw in your life. I'm a character by that time. And so I go flashing down there. I've got some gold jewelry on everything. And he lives in a, this is in a basement place down in the street. And he lives in the back.

They've got a curtain separating. He and his wife cook and sleep in the back. And this huge mat is out in the front seat. I go in there and I said, 'I'm the one that called you yesterday.' I said, 'I'm going to buy a black belt.' I said, 'Well, he said, 'well, don't say anything else.' He said, 'Your name's Owens.' And I said, 'Yeah.' He says, 'Take off your clothes. Go behind that screen. Take off your clothes and get in this cotton pants and jacket and take off your shoes.' He said, 'Don't ever walk in that mat with your shoes again.' I made a mistake there. I said, 'All right.' I thought, 'Gee, this fellow's eccentric.' I go behind the screen. I get this cotton stuff and I come out. Then he proceeds to slam me down in every possible way you can think of. Wham, wham, bang. He throws me all over that place. Then he takes the edge of his wrist, gets me down; he takes the edge of his wrist and jams into my throat. And I was unable to talk for two or three days from that.