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“While the city dozed in its bed of provincial and baroque Catholicism, seemingly at any time of any day, he put on his Meander and became the Cologne Boy.”
In the Booker T. Jones and William Bell’s penned masterpiece “Born Under a Bad Sign” the quintessential statement is metaphysical “If it wasn't for bad luck, I said, I wouldn't have no luck at all”. To the idea that some force determines the outcome of human endeavor, my own tale contributes proof: I refused to serve in the army, did not accept any authority other than my own conscience and reason, and was sentenced by the State to do menial work for almost no money. Subsequently, I went to Cologne where I was accepted by the University Clinic to transport patients and to run after anyone that tried to escape from the ward for the criminally insane, even though they used another name for that institution, which I forgot, much like I tried to forget everything that I saw. Now, after 30 years in America, I’m back at the University Clinic, but this time as a patient. I’m quite sure I am not being treated for terminal Cancer at the ward for the criminally insane. Let us look around then, in this room, this city, and in this country: “Well, if it wasn’t for bad luck, I said, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”
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