47.0°,
Fair 50 years at Jones Beach
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His family was always his first priority, and given his modest salary, that meant after-hours jobs. He worked nights at high school pools in Queens for most of his teaching career, and he signed in at Jones Beach only on weekends for 15 of his summers there because the city pools paid better. Hahn was known as the teacher with lots of lifeguarding gigs. “We learned about commitment,” says his daughter Julie, who’s now 40 and teaches at JFK Middle School in Bethpage. “When we sign on to something, we’re committed to the end. We don’t call in sick; we don’t leave early or late. If we start something, we’re gonna finish it.”
The Hahns’ lives have been unique and adventurous, thanks in no small part to Lee. After he and Gerry married in 1965, they toured Europe on a two-month honeymoon, riding a 150-cc Vespa motor scooter, which Lee bought in Paris, all the way to Rome and then back to Amsterdam. The following summer, they drove across the U.S. They took the kids on a cross-country camping trip 12 years later.
Lee is an accomplished sailor, and in the late 1970s, he and Erik were a crew of two in their 23-foot Oday sloop in races staged by the Lindenhurst Yacht Club. In 1985 Lee, Erik and Joanna sailed to Newport, R.I., to see the Americas Cup competition. It was a three-day trip, and they had to leave the boat in Montauk and hitchhike back to Merrick so Lee could be at work at the beach the next morning.
Hahns have sailed up the Hudson and down the East River, and run aground in the Great South Bay more times than their skipper could count as he mapped the shoals in his mind. There were also ski trips and dance lessons and, of course, countless summer days at the beach, watching Dad “work.” “He had Erik was he was 23, so he was kind of a kid with us in a way,” Joanna, 44, now an architectural librarian in San Francisco, says of her father. “We never skimped on fun.”
Hahn still has his motorcycle license, but these days he prefers riding a bicycle, pedaling back and forth to the Merrick libraries to borrow and return books, picking up groceries or shepherding two of his grandchildren, Julie’s boys Jaden, 9, and Harley, 7, on rides around his neighborhood.
The Hahns’ lives have been unique and adventurous, thanks in no small part to Lee. After he and Gerry married in 1965, they toured Europe on a two-month honeymoon, riding a 150-cc Vespa motor scooter, which Lee bought in Paris, all the way to Rome and then back to Amsterdam. The following summer, they drove across the U.S. They took the kids on a cross-country camping trip 12 years later.
Lee is an accomplished sailor, and in the late 1970s, he and Erik were a crew of two in their 23-foot Oday sloop in races staged by the Lindenhurst Yacht Club. In 1985 Lee, Erik and Joanna sailed to Newport, R.I., to see the Americas Cup competition. It was a three-day trip, and they had to leave the boat in Montauk and hitchhike back to Merrick so Lee could be at work at the beach the next morning.
Hahns have sailed up the Hudson and down the East River, and run aground in the Great South Bay more times than their skipper could count as he mapped the shoals in his mind. There were also ski trips and dance lessons and, of course, countless summer days at the beach, watching Dad “work.” “He had Erik was he was 23, so he was kind of a kid with us in a way,” Joanna, 44, now an architectural librarian in San Francisco, says of her father. “We never skimped on fun.”
Hahn still has his motorcycle license, but these days he prefers riding a bicycle, pedaling back and forth to the Merrick libraries to borrow and return books, picking up groceries or shepherding two of his grandchildren, Julie’s boys Jaden, 9, and Harley, 7, on rides around his neighborhood.
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