`HARMONICA JOHN' - ENTERTAINER EXTRAORDINAIRE

Monticello House Administrator Mike Bacon, left, says that the residents really love Harmonica John and wouldn't let a Thursday go by without hearing his music.

They call him Harmonica John and not without good reason; he's played one for over 60 years. For the last two, he's been playing at various nursing homes in the Jackson area.

"When I retired, I had a lot of time on my hands," Harmonica John, whose real name is John Dybell, said. "Some people suggested I do something constructive with all that time; they said I should play harmonica for the local nursing homes."

And so he has.

Currently, he plays for Deal Nursing Home, Jackson Manor, Monticello House, the Jackson Senior Center and the Veterans Home.

He plays for most of them once a month, but not at Monticello. He plays there every Thursday, rain or shine.

"This is about 50 minutes of the same old songs," Dybell said. "I told those people that's the same thing every single Thursday, and they said they still wanted me there every Thursday.

"You'd think they'd get tired of it, but I guess they don't."

Mike Bacon, the administrator of the Monticello House said there's no way they get tired of Harmonica John.

"He's fabulous," Bacon said. "We really appreciate him. He plays every Thursday for free, he doesn't charge a cent. And he's just really great guy."

Dybell said he does it because he enjoys it and he likes the people there and that's better than any amount of money.

"I just love those people to pieces," Dybell said. "They're my kind of people. They're all my friends. I just chew the fat with them and joke with them. They're just a bunch of beautiful people."

He said he volunteers his time instead of asking for pay because the world is full enough of greed as it is.

"I believe if it comes from the heart it reaches the heart," Dybell said. "Everything can't be measured in dollars and cents."

It's not entirely free, though. Dybell said he won't play a note until he gets a cup of coffee.

"You've got to give me my coffee," Dybell said. "If you don't, then that's it."

And apparently the residents of the homes like it, too.

"They just sit by the window and just watch for him to come," Helen DYBELL, John's wife of 51 years, said.

Sometimes, Dybell said he looks at their bulletin board and notices they have nothing scheduled, with the exception of perhaps an inside bingo game or "pitching those plastic horseshoes." He's glad he can do something to brighten their day a bit.

Dybell said he does get occasional requests at the nursing homes, but most of them he doesn't know. He said he only knows about 50 songs, including such old classics as "On Top of Old Smokey," "Red River Valley," and "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane."

Helen Dybell said she tells him to learn new songs, but he doesn't want to.

"I'm getting too old and tired," Dybell responds, jokingly.

Harmonica John plays mostly country, throwing in an occasional waltz, polka or gospel tune.

Appropriately, since Dybell is Polish himself, the first song he learned to play was a Polish tune. But he said his favorite song is "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?" and that it is his theme song.

"That's the first one I usually play, I start out with that one," Dybell said. "I dedicate that to my wife, always. She's been with me 51 years. That's a long time to put up with me."

As earlier mentioned, Dybell is of Polish decent, and was born there. Dybell said his family came to America in 1910, 11 years before he was born, because there was "nothing" in Poland.

While his mother was pregnant with him, his grandmother died so she had to go to Poland to settle the estate.

"I was born an American citizen on foreign soil," Dybell said. "My mom decided to go to school in Poland and study to be a midwife and we stayed there until I was. Then we came back in 1924."

Dybell's early life in America definately had a Polish bias.

"All my friends I brought home had to be Polish," Dybell said. "The grade school I attended spoke only Polish for half a day. The other half we spoke English."

Dybell said he was given his first harmonica from his mother for Christmas when he was eight years old. He said she paid $.15. Now he has to order them and pays over $60 a piece for them. There are some harmonica's priced at over $700. Dybell owns eight harmonica's himself, each one in a different key.

The rest of his equipment is not cheap. His entire sound system, which includes two speakers, a microphone and a delay, cost him over $2,000.

He played for his family when he was a child.

"In those days we didn't have a TV, radio or anything," Dybell said, "so when people came over, my mother made me play. The guys would be playing cards, the girls would be sitting around talking and I would play."

Dybell was around during the Depression, where he spent some of his early adulthood fighting forest fires in the Civilian Conservation Corps, for which he got $30 a month for.

"I only got $5 of it for myself, because they sent the rest home to help out our families," Dybell said.

He said they weren't the best of memories. He said they used to bring sandwiches loaded in potato sacks, which weren't even wrapped, they were just "thrown in there."

Dybell said a bologna sandwicha and a pineapple sandwich was all they got; they weren't even given water.

"You'd look in that sack after they drug it for nine miles or so," said Dybell, "and it looked like somebody already ate it once."

And they'd fight the fires from anywhere from 12 to 14 hours a day.

He said that they required you to stay six months but he stayed two years and it certainly wasn't because he liked it.

"The main reason I stayed that long was so my family could get that $25 bucks," Dybell said.

Dybell also played harmonica for his four children, whom have all grown up.

"The kids loved to hear me so much they bought me my first sound system," Dybell said and that was 30 years ago.

The Dybell's originally lived in Dyer, Ind., which Dybell said is sandwiched between Hammond and Gary. They moved to Jackson two years ago after John Dybell retired and they like it here very much.

"There is a great difference in people," Dybell said. "They are friendly, compassionate, loving and caring."

Dybell said that he likes playing harmonica at the homes and he does because you never know what's going to happen.

"Who knows?" Dybell said. "One of these days I might be in one of those homes wondering if anybody's going to entertain me. If more people would do things like this, it would be nice and those people would really appreciate it."

Dybell said he has no plans on slowing down, though.

"The good Lord willing," Dybell said. "I hope to continue this until I croak."