DAY 3, MARCH 24, 2009

HANS

Hans is like a father to Leo.
With his mother they make a trio.
Together they seem merry.
But Shelley he won't marry,
Says he can't get along with she, oh.

New York City still. Once again clear and cool. Cold in the morning but warmer in the afternoon and evening than it had been. Once again we didn't get out of the hotel until midday.

We went across the street and changed our train tickets. Returning to New York from India April 17, we will take the train to Lynchburg April 19 instead of April 23.

Below the train station are several stores and a huge food court. We bought a few groceries in a store and had pizza in a little Italian restaurant.

Then I posted my blog entry on the Internet at Starbucks.

It was getting to be late afternoon when we set out as tourists. We took the subway downtown to the Fulton street station to have a look at and near Ground Zero, which is all fenced off for construction of the Victory Tower.

We had a good look inside St. Paul's Chapel, whose cemetery out-front borders Ground Zero across the street. The chapel was built in 1767 and was the site or near the site of George Washington's first inauguration. It is billed as the oldest public building still in use in NYC. So it has historic interest as an old building. But it has more interest in connection with 9/11. It was the place where support was provided to the many volunteers who worked at Ground Zero. It has numerous displays relating to the volunteers, the victims, and people from around the country who in various ways expressed their sorrow for the victims and support for the volunteers. We took several photos.

We took a cab and arrived at exactly 5:30, the agreed meeting time, at 2nd Ave. and 9th St., the agreed place to meet Hans, who arrived at the same moment by bicycle together with 8-year-old Leo on his little bike. In a few moments, Leo's mother Shelley arrived on her 1949 Schwinn bicycle. This is the site of the Ukrainian restaurant Veselika, where the five of us had dinner together. I enjoyed Ukrainian goulash. It's fairly close to Hans' apartment and closer still to where Shelley and Leo live in a tiny, 5th-floor, efficiency apartment on 11th St.

We walked from the restaurant to Shelley's and Leo's apartment. The neighborhood looked a little bit familiar to me and I recognized a few features, including Veniero's, established 1894, a wonderful desert shop and dessert restaurant, which blows your mind with its offerings., where Hans bought some cheesecake. On a previous stay with Hans, we had once eaten dessert in Veniero's and on several mornings I had run through some of those streets to and alongside the East River.

In the apartment Shelley fixed coffee and hot chocolate to go with the cheesecake, and we had a nice leisurely visit. We had very briefly been to the apartment before when Leo was a baby. Leo sang “Country Roads” and another song for us. He teaches himself by listening to and singing along with songs, using earphones with their laptop computer.

Hans has served as a devoted, doting father-figure for Leo since his birth. It turns out that the three of them go places and do things together. They go to Cleveland where Shelley is from, will go there for Easter. Shelley has been to Austria with Hans many years ago.

I had heard the story but pretty much forgotten. So I asked Hans how he met Shelley. And Helen asked Hans why he doesn't marry her, to which he said he can't get along with her and also that he has plans four years from now to make a long-term world cruise with a boat he owns and is renovating.

My goodness, it's been 20 years! Hans said he met Shelley in 1989. They were boyfriend-girlfriend for a time and that ended. Shelley had a short marriage with a Frenchman (the father of Leo), who abandoned her – I think it was before Leo was born – and went back to France.

Shelley long ago earned a bachelor's degree. She's an artist, a sculptor. She had a studio with students. Presently she's not working. She plans to go to law school and become a lawyer. She is one of eight “kids” in a Cleveland Irish family.

From near the apartment we took a cab back to our hotel. Helen had quite a conversation with the cabbie, a divorcee who has a nine-year-old daughter.

Hans always amazes us how intellectual he is for a high-school graduate from a village in Austria. I gave him an interesting article in the New York Times to read. Helen had found this article about how J.P. Morgan took the lead in bailing the U.S. out of a major financial crisis in 1907. On our way to a corner to get a cab, Hans went in a magazine store and bought me a copy of Harper's in which, as we fly to London and beyond, he wants me to read an article about Infinite Debt.

Bernie :-)