The Kokomo Tribune from Kokomo, Indiana • Page 13

Thursday, May 2, 1974 Family news News and features for all the family To New York City! KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 13 He goes a long way to play harmonica By MARY D'ANDREA Charles Jackson, a Kokomu jeweler, has gone a long way to fulfill his musical ambitions. In fact, he's gone as far as New York City-- a distance of about 800 miles-- for the rare opportunity of studying with the world's foremost harmonica teacher, Cham-Ber Huang. On a Monday morning around the i of every month, Jackson drives to Indianapolis, boards a plane for New York's LaGuardia Airport, goes to an old brownstone building on Second A and Fifty-Second Street and spends a couple of hours playing the harmonica. Then he goes to a hotel for the night and returns to the old brownstone the next morning to work several hours with a special and select group of classical harmonica players, takes another lesson from Cham-Ber Huang and on Wednesday morning he returns to Kokomo. The two-day trip is far from inexpensive and it's not a pleasure jaunt.

It's two days of a work. But Charles Jackson has wanted to play the harmonica since he was a child. He collected harmonicas, hundreds of them. However, he didn't know how to play them and he didn't have time to learn. Then in 1971 Charles Jackson suffered two severe heart attacks.

"After 20 days in intensive care with i HOURS MOM. THRU SAT. OPEN MOON SOME TIMES AS LATE AS 1:30 CLOSE ABOUT 5:30 OR 6:00 ALL DAY WED. 'OCCASIONALLY i WILL CLOSE on SAT. 4:30 OR ESPECIALLY WHEN THE WORLD SEEMS DREARY.

New hours This sign in the window of The Jackson Jewlery Store at 841 S. Main reflects the way of life adopted by Charles Jackson after he suffered two heart attacks in 1971. It was the illness that led Jackson to fulfill his lifelong ambition to learn to play the harmonica. (Tribune photo) nothing to do but look at the celling, I decided if I ever got out of there, I was going to do something I had always wanted to do-- I was going to learn to play the harmonica," said Jackson in recalling that critical period following his attacks. He recovered, cut down on his working hours at his jewelry shop at 841 S.

Main and told his wife, Frances, he was going to look for someone to teach him how to play the harmonica. "I was in for a surprise," he said Jackson found out there aren't too many people around who teach harmonica playing. Long searches through Indianapolis and Chicago proved futile. But his travels did net some interesting harmonica music books which he used to teach himself the basics of playing. And finally he traced the name of Cham-Ber Huang, which appeared on several ot the books, to New York City and the Turtle Bay School of Music at Second A and Fifty-Second Street.

"I told Frances we were going to New York," said Jackson. "And we did. We went to that Turtle Bay school and I asked to meet this Mr. Huang who was supposed to be the greatest-and by that time I believed him to be the only-- classical harmonica player in the world." "Of course, they didn't pay much attention to me," he continued, "but I insisted so they took a message and said Mr. Huang would call me.

And you know, he did!" That was the beginning of the realization of a life-long dream. But not even Charles Jackson could envision where his harmonica playing would take him. Impressed by Jackson's preserver- ance, as well as the fact he had traveled all the way from Indiana just to take a harmonica lesson, a agreed to teach Jackson the art of classical harmonica playing. Huang, who came to this country from Red China in the late 1940s, was impressed enough with Jackson to invite him to i his a i a Families to reap the benefits of church's community spirit Forty families in the Kokomo area will have the pleasure, as well as the health and financial benefits, of vegetable gardens this summer because of the community spirit shown by members of Emmaus United Methodist Church. Sunday services are conducted at 1709 Rue Royale, but the church owns about four and one-half acres of land at Berkley Road and Boulevard.

Until this spring, the land was the location of the parsonage, a future building site and a weekly mowing chore. This year things are different. "There isn't much garden space in the area," said Charles a i chairman of the board of church trustees. "There is a need for land and we saw a chance to use the ground for something other than keeping the dandelions growing." The response was immediate. On Saturday, the land was plowed and disked, then staked off into 30 by 30-foot plots.

That same day, many families started planting their gardens. By Monday there were only four plots left. I with the a is a mowed play area for the children. The individual plots rent for $5 for the season. "We aren't trying to make any money from it," said Manning.

"We just thought the land could be put to good use. You every green plant gives more oxygen for us to breathe." The community garden isn't limited to members of (he church or even to residents of the area. Many of the 40 families are apartment dwellers in the Country Club Hills area who are taking advantage of the opportunity to save on grocery bills. But many are from other neighborhoods and one family drives from as far away as Indian Heights. a Methodist is a a church with a parttime minister.

The full responsibility of the project will fall to the congregation and the trustees. "We only have about 50 members," Manning said, "so we're keeping it small enough for the members to handle. We're hoping that people will understand and respect the property." group, the select Cham-Ber Huang Group, which was about to tour Germany for a month, a trip sponsored by Hohner a a i which a a i a The Group is composed of 20 harmonica players, men and women of all ages, the oldest being an 80-year-old woman. After the tour of Germany, Jackson settled down to a routine of the two- day trip to New York City once a month. His wife accompanies him every other month.

The type of music played by the Cham-Ber Huang Group is classical with a lot of Bach. But Jackson plays popular music, too, and among his wife's favorites is "Peg of my Heart." Next on the agenda for the harmonica group will be a Carnegie Hall concert when Hohner's new harmonica will be a introduced to the music world. "It's a new concept in harmonicas," explained Jackson. The new instrument is scheduled to be introduced to the public in June and is now being manufactured at the Hohner company in Hickville, Long Island, N.Y. After the concert, which is tentatively scheduled for fall, the group plans to tour Red China, clearance for which has already been given by the U.S.

State Department. The group is awaiting clearance from the Chinese government. Jackson practices his harmonica three hours every day. It's a pleasurable time for him and although he confesses to a feeling of ineptness in such an exclusive group as that of Cham- Ber Huang, he devotes every spare moment to practice. "I feel like I'm in over my head with these people and they're just dragging me along with them.

After all, I just started playing a couple of years ago," he said with a smile. Mrs. Jackson said she thoroughly enjoys her husband's harmonica playing. "Everybody likes to make music," she said. "And I think it's wonderful that he's still building at his age.

Right now he's just sort of drifting, not rowing, as far as work is concerned. But he's still rowing with his harmonica playing and I think that's wonderful." Jackson will be 70 on his next birthday. And although the couple is looking forward to the cultural exchange visit to Red China, right now the monthly trips to New York are a highlight in the life of Charles Jackson. He knows his way around the Turtle Bay area now. He takes the subway, saving taxi fare.

He knows where to eat and where to spend the night for a reasonable amount of money. But most of all, Charles Jackson finally knows how to play a harmonica-- and once a inuntli he works with the best harmonica players in the world. And that makes it all worthwhile. One of the best Charles Jackson, 623 S. Union has gone a long way all the way to New York to fulfill his dream of becoming a harmonica player Today he's one of the best, playing with the Cham-Ber Huang Classical Horomin- ica Group of New York City.

The group is scheduled to tour Red China in the near future. (Tribune photo) Clinton is home. He is isolated in the west a surrounded by stout fence posts, strong wire and a securely fastened gate. What's more, he is going to stay there until we get the new fences up in his favorite meadow by the pond. Clinton is a yearling calf, a lumbering, lovable steer with one horn, a penchant for teasing goats and the most angelic expression in the barnyard.

Clinton has a disposition to go with his face. He tolerates the chicken who perches on his rump. He nudges the kittens out of his path. He follows his people around like a pet lamb. Clinton is tamer than most dogs.

There is only one problem with Clinton. He roams. He has the traveling instincts of Marco Polo, Lewis and Clark and Henry Kissinger, all rolled into one. Even when the grass is greener 011 his side of the fence, Clinton investigates the other side. He has a talent for finding holes in fences.

He can go over or under or through any fence from barbed wire to wooden rail, from three feet to five feet high. Once, when a wind storm drove him to the brink of (lie pond, he straddled a rail fence, went through a hole in a wire fence, forded water two feet deep, climbed a cliff-steep hill and had almost circled back home again when we found him. He followed us meekly home. But then he always comes home. No matter how far Clinton roams, no matter how enticing the grass on the other side of the fence, eventually he heads back home.

One reason is Pete. Pete is his pasture mate, a steer with a fondness for his home pasture. Pete doesn't roam. Pete bawls. When Clinton leaves, every farmer in our part of Howard County knows it.

Pete stands by the fence where Clinton made his escape and he proclaims his alonencss to the world. He calls. He bellows. And when Pete bawls, we search. Until lately.

Twice in the past week Pete has ignored Clinton's escape and gone silently about his business of munching grass. Twice in the past week Clinton has been free to wander for hours without Pete's bawling or our searching. The first time he wandered until suppertimc, then came back to his opening in the fence and bellowed plaintively. The second time he had more trouble. By the time we found his escape route, Clinton was long gone.

The ho- ofprints told the story. They paced back and forth by the fence, then headed off. They led us on a meandering route through the underbrush, around the trees, alongftjie fence. They traveled through the adjoining pasture, through the neighbor's pasture, through two gates and three front lawns. Now the hoofprints stopped meandering.

They straightened. Now he knew where he was headed, We hurried. The hoofprints went on. Beside the gravel road. Down the driveway.

To our own gate. And there was Clinton. Peacefully chewing his cud. Watching our approach, Patiently waiting for us to let him back in the barnyard. Planting day Wednesday was planting day for Mr.

and Mrs. James laughner, 412 Marilyn Court, as they worked in their plot of the community garden at Berkley Road and Boulevard. Above, Laughner is hoeing with Ihe help of his daughter, Mrs. Beverly Bess. (Photo by Ed Hubbard) State of the economy 'It's enough to make any body thoughtful, isn't it? By CARLTON SMITH NBA financial writer If you're feeling a little nervous about the state of our economy these days, you've got good company.

One afternoon not long ago, a member of the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington up his phone and called the attorney for a bond fund on the West Coast. ft's a fund that restricts investments to bonds and other securities of the very highest quality, and it heavily emphasizes safety and liquidity. You could say it's conservative or you might say it's running scared. "I've been reading your prospectus," said the SEC staffer, "and I had a question about your procedure for redemptions. It says that when shares arc redeemed, the shareholder will or- i a i be paid by a check on your bank or payment may be made by postal money order.

What docs (hat mean?" "Gee, I thought it was clear enough," said the attorney for the fund. "We cither send the shareholder a he a shares redeemed, or we might pay him by postal money order." "Yes," said the SEC man, "but why postal money orders?" Pause on the phone. "Well," said the fund's attorney, "if the banks were closed "That's what I thought it meant," said the SEC staffer and thoughtfully hung up. That's how things look to them on Hamilton Avenue In Palo Alto, where the Capital Preservation Fund has its offices. The no-load bond fund (no sales commissions) has been operating on the principle that things were bad, and getting worse, since James M.

Benham got It started a year and a half ago. As the fund's name suggests, preservation of capital Is the name of today's game, to Benham, and the bit about postal money orders is part of his precautionary view. "If the banks are closed," he says, "what good is a check on our bank to one of our shareholders?" (The fund writes its checks, incidentally, on a $2 billion bank. Nothing there to make Benham nervous.) "But there's one way we can always turn shares into cash," he went on. "Our custodian takes Treasury Bills, for example, down to the Federal Reserve window.

The Federal Reserve is the agent of the U.S. Treasury; it has to give us cash for our Treasury Bills, as long as the government is solvent, "Then out custodian takes the cash to the post office, buys a money order, and sends it to our shaeholdcr. And -again, as long as the government is solvent you're going to be able to get cash at a post office for a postal money order." Well, that's certainly covering all your cjilts. But how seriously is Ben- ham worried about the possibility of banks closing? "If we can get to the point of waiting in line for gas," he replies, "what's so i a about waiting in line for money? You know, I was a Federal Reserve bank examiner, years ago, I i a i a I out of the habit of reading 'statements of condition'. Here Benham shuffled through some papers and held up a pair of statements clipped from newspapers.

Bolh were from large, West Const savings and loan associations. "Look at this one. Total assets, one and a third billion dollars, Of that, the cash and liquid assets arc SGI million. "Now, look down here under the liabilities. A a a Home Loan Bank, $108 mllllcm'.

In other words, it doesn't have any real cash or liquid assets of its own. It's borrowed the whole amount and more from the government." He displayed another one. "Cash, government securities and such, $28 million. Now look down here: Borrowed from the Home Loan Bank, $29 million. Look at almost any statement of condition and you'll see about the same thing.

The 'cash on hand' is mostly borrowed money. "If it comes to a real crunch, and the bubble breaks, a lot of institutions are going to be in bad, bad trouble. It could shake up the country's whole monetary system. I'm not predicting it, mind you hut I like to be prepared for the worst." And a a the SEC man thought he meant, when he phoned to ask about those postal money orders. It's enough to make anybody thought- ful, isn't It?.