This is my father-in-law, who might also be my greatest fan, at least when it comes to my writing. At 91 years old, he’s awaiting my next book, one that has the potential to resonate with him in ways that will exceed whatever it was he took from Stay in the Magic, my work about the Grand Canyon. Since then, we have had the opportunity to discuss my passion for experiencing life and sharing it with his daughter, and along the way we learned of each other’s respect for the sage words of Arthur Schopenhauer. I think it was about 20 years ago, give or take five, that Caroline and Hanns reawakened their stagnating relationship, which subsequently opened the door for him and me to get to know one another better.

We are here in Geisenheim on the Rhein River to see Hanns and Vevie, Hanns’ wife, who was under the weather and not able to join us for lunch. We got out of Frankfurt this morning a bit late because it took nearly an hour to get to the car rental agency. Yep, we rented a car, something I didn’t think we’d likely ever do in Europe again. Not only that, we had to upgrade the vehicle, since at the last minute, I invited Klaus and Stephanie to join us for the last three nights and four days of our time in France. Our original rental would have been cramped for four people and bags, though it would have been a lot easier on the gasoline consumption, something that matters when you are paying close to $9 a gallon. Anyway, we ended up with a 2025 Volkswagen Tayron with only 6km on it that we quickly nicknamed the Purple Panzer. Let’s get this out of the way right now: the software of this vehicle made it the absolute worst experience I’ve ever had driving a car, including my 1966 Dodge Dart, not that it had software, but that car was definitely a POS (Piece of Shit), just as this VW was. I can’t say enough bad things about the Tayron, which elicited daily, sometimes hourly, grumbles about the poor engineering.

Alrighty then, back to our story at hand. Geisenheim is a small place, with fewer than 12,000 people living here, and so eating establishments are scarce. As on previous visits, we dipped into Restaurant Domstube, followed by a slow walk back to Hanns’ and Vevie’s place. Like me, I don’t think my father-in-law can pass an open church without stopping in to say a prayer, and together, he and his daughter never fail to light a candle. While the story has been shared before, it bears repeating that the majority of Hanns’ working life was spent in Karlsruhe at the Bundesgerichtshof – BGH or the Federal Court of Justice, Germany’s version of the Supreme Court. It wasn’t until the summer of 2000 that his lifelong dream finally came true when he exchanged his judicial robe for that of the clergy. More of that later.

Strangely enough, until today, this monument in honor of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had been overlooked by not only Caroline and me, but also by Hanns. The translation attributed to Longfellow reads, “What bells are those, that ring so slow, so mellow, musical, and low? They are the bells of Geisenheim, that with their melancholy chime ring out the curfew of the sun.” None of us would have ever guessed that Longfellow has passed through this tiny village on the Rhine.

Oooh, look at all the pretty stuff. This is effectively what has been happening to me all day while I try to write this post. Everything, besides the words I’m needing to drag out of my head, has been jumping into my attention. Competition for brain cells is fierce, and I feel that my will is winning the Schopenhauerian battle to prove its irrationality, driving me to distraction. Rational thought, on the other hand, is reminding me that I cannot progress to writing about the next day on which we depart Germany and begin our epic visit to France before finishing these bits and pieces. Secondly, the return to working on my novel cannot occur before completing posts for every day of our vacation. This puts me between the proverbial rock and hard place, as opposed to taking up a spot as decoration being admired by passers-by.

Risking the loss of family history, which is likely the natural state of things, I’d like to grasp hold of the little we might be able to learn about those who came before Caroline. Back in 2021, I was able to capture some of that record regarding the maternal side of Caroline’s lineage; today, the paternal side begins falling into place. This is Johann Christoph Engelhardt, the great-grandfather of Hanns. Johann died on March 5, 1904, at the age of 66.

This is Hanns’ grandfather, Johann Christian Engelhardt, who was born in 1860 and died in 1953.

Hanns’ grandmother Dorothea Amschel.

Hanns’ parents on their wedding day. Clara Wilhelmina Laura Engelhardt, née Weber and Christian Engelhardt in 1929.

Christian kept a detailed diary about his son that still exists. This page notes Hanns-Christian Joachim Engelhardt’s birth in Frankfurt am Main-Hoechst on 21 March 1934.

There are easily thousands of words penned by Hanns’ father. I asked if he’s ever read it, and he answered that he has not. I can only wonder what hurt exists on these pages. Caroline will take the time to decipher the old version of German handwriting of the pages I photographed, so we might glimpse some insight into Hanns’ early life.

Christian, Clara, and baby Hanns, the Engelhardt family, who would lend their name to Jutta and subsequently Caroline and Stephanie.

Photos, pressed leaves, and the occasional drawing from Hanns – this would seem like a treasure worth knowing. I’m confused how this has been kept, protected, for decades, and yet it is unexplored.

The toddler Hanns with his mother Clara and his maternal grandfather Otto Weber, what a damn stern looking man.

What does this page have to say? It’s Christmas 1939, Hanns is six years old, and Poland had been invaded only 90 days previously. The world was changing, and Caroline’s father would have had to be shaped by the events of a war that would accompany him through his 11th year of life, with the aftereffects playing their part.

Initially, it hadn’t occurred to me, but behind Hanns is a Puppenkasten (puppet theater) also known as a Kaspertheater with Stabpuppen (rod-articulated puppets) that many middle-class homes in Germany before the advent of television would have had. This particular box was probably assembled by Hanns’ father who enjoyed wood working. Kasper is an inveterate trickster and hero to many stories that involve his friend Gretel and other characters such as Grandma, Seppel, and (more sinister) the devil. Grimms’ most popular fairy tales and even children’s rendition of classics such as Goethe’s Faust belonged to the repertoire of Kaspertheaters, teaching youngsters lessons about virtues such as bravery and honesty using humor and allegory. Eighty-five years later, I’m learning about this by researching the subject using artificial intelligence over a Wi-Fi connection at a coffee shop where the 15″ illuminated screen, powered by batteries that are only 4–6mm thick, shares this history gleaned from the global repositories of knowledge.

And then there was a gap photographically until Hanns was maybe about 12 years old. I’d also seen the same thing going through my mother-in-law’s pictures; it appears that German families were distracted by the escalating warfare that was consuming their country until shortly after World War II came to a close. My conjecture is only that, a guess; I’d like to know more, and maybe on our next visit or during a phone call, I can learn about what was transpiring between 1939 and 1945 in German homes.

This is the oldest photo I’ve seen of Hanns (left) and Jutta (center), apparently before they married.

Not that my father-in-law would really be able to inhabit such a persona, but in this image, I feel he’s channeling an element of hipster with what appears to be a black turtleneck, a long pendant, his arm set casually on the wall, palm trees in the background (not Germany), and the kind of confidence one might see on David Letterman after he retired from television.

I’ve written about this before, but it can be repeated, my hipster father-in-law is also a closet robe-fetishist, certainly not a title he’d agree with and maybe not appreciate, but 25 years ago, Hanns exchanged the robe of the bench for the robe of the clergy when he became an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church. With this, he fulfilled a lifelong dream, and to this day, he’s still living the dream.

If there was an unfortunate aspect of our relationship, it is that Caroline and I live more than 8,000 miles away, making frequent visits to Geisenheim impossible. There’s only so much one can do with their precious time, and I sincerely wish that I would exercise the effort to visit Germany outside of vacation so that Hanns and I could find some dedicated time to explore more in-depth conversations around the things in life that allow us to understand the complexity of it all better.

Funny enough, my brother-in-law Klaus shares Hanns’ last name: Engelhardt, yet he’s never met my/his father-in-law. Maybe not so obvious, Klaus wanted to escape his family name, dad issues, wouldn’t you know. My sister-in-law has been estranged from her father for decades, which in turn has alienated their daughter from knowing her grandfather. To each their own, but as happy as I am that in the past dozen years I’ve been able to get to know my in-laws better and share countless laughs, I feel it is unfortunate that so much time for unknown potentials is likely lost.

Never will I grow tired of the Frankfurt skyline, nor will the surprise and sense of wow be overlooked that for 10 years, I called this area of Hessen, Germany, home.

9:30 in the evening, and the glow lingers, mirroring my sense of awe that all of this is part of our lives.