Bernd Gusko

I met Bernd Gusko in a music store called Viertmann’s in Cologne (or Koeln as they call it) back in 1980.

In those days, I liked to hang out in music store, especially guitar stores.

We started talking and Bernd invited me to his apartment and we became good friends.

Bernd was a school teacher and invited me to perform a small recital for his students which he recorded on his reel-to-reel and gave me a copy.

When my friend from New Zealand visited me that summer, he and his girlfriend invited us for a bike ride along the Rhine and for dinner afterwards.

After I left Germany in 1981, I lost touch with most of the people I knew in Germany including Bernd.

I hadn’t thought about Bernd a long time.

But the other day, a thought occurred to me about something and he came to mind.

That’s the thing about thoughts. They tend to wander around and one thought would lead to another and most of the time they would be totally unrelated.

The thought was about crocodiles. (Why was I thinking about crocodiles? That’s for another post.)

And I recalled a story Bernd had told me and my friend.

He said the German government was concerned about integrating all the Turkish and Italian guest workers in the country.

At the time, the country was swarming with guest workers or Gastarbeiter in German.

To integrate them, the government decided it would organize water polo matches for the Turkish and Italian workers.

And the winners would play a team of crocodiles.

At first, I didn’t get the joke but when I understood it, I remember being a little aghast.

It’s one of those foreign workers jokes that were floating around at the time.

Like the one about the difference between a disaster and a catastrophe. (A disaster is when a ship full of foreign workers sinks and a catastrophe is when they could all swim.)

It’s an interesting anomaly—normal and good people seemingly being able to live with rather dark thoughts.

I mean, just think of the consequences of playing water polo against a team of crocodiles.

But that bike ride along the Rhine is one of those things that one never forgets.

And Bernd was a most gracious host, and I am always grateful to him for being such a good friend when I was in Germany.