My granddaughter Robin, who turned three in August, had a great zoo adventure Saturday, along with me, Maria, Emma and my son-in-law Jay Jaffe.

It was Robin’s first time at the zoo,  and there was a symbolic and emotional connection to the meeting.

Emma and I went to the Bronx Zoo, the world’s largest urban zoo at 265 acres, and one of the most popular, at least a dozen time when she was quite young.

I did feel older, for sure, so much has happened between then and now. I carried Emma to the fence to see the lions, and she carried Robin to the fence to see the lions.

It’s a beautiful park with animals and exhibits scattered all over some surprising woodlands and rivers in the middle of the Bronx, I especially love the original old zoo, with its gorgeous stone statues of elephants, monkeys, lions, and snakes.

The zoo park is huge, but so were the crowds. I just love to see so many people of different colors, speaking all kinds of different languages, wearing all kinds of different clothes.

It is just too late to turn America all-white again, it can’t happen. And speaking for myself, I don’t want it to happen. Maria and I drank up the riot of color and language and people – thousands and thousands of them. It was good to see it again, there isn’t much of it where I live.

Robin was understandably excited and overwhelmed – she wanted to go on the Dinosaur Tour, and then we just started walking until we got to the lions, some monkeys, various deer and bison, the House of Birds and Tiger Mountain.

She and I too a carousel ride together and she wanted to know about Red, the donkeys, the cats, and the fish.

She is so obsessed with the toy fish tank I sent her that Emma has had to take it away for a while so that Robin can get to sleep. We at the zoo from ll a.m. until closing time, around 5:30. My feet are not happy with me.

It was great to see Robin take in this magnificent place, set squarely in the middle of one of the most densely populated and most urban places on the earth.

The zoo itself is a beautiful and peaceful refuge, the only signs of the surrounding urban life are the giant housing project towers that pop up over the tall and beautiful trees. She is paying close attention to me, trying to figure things out. I get the feeling I am different from the men she usually sees.

At one point, she was talking about her grandmother, my first wife Paula, and then she looked at me and at Maria and I could almost hear the wheels turning. If Paula was her grandmother and I was her grandfather, then who exactly was Maria?

I told her it was a long story, her mother would have to tell it to her one day. Maria was not her grandmother, I said, but then Robin took Maria’s hand and asked her to take her on the carousel ride with me and her.

We had a great time, seeing the zoo again – it’s been a long time – stirred up a lot of emotions. Seeing the zoo with Emma and Robin stirred up some more. We were seeing the very same things we saw decades ago, yet my life is anything but the same.

I remember pushing Emma around in a stroller for hours, reassuring her that the animals were not dangerous, and Emma was doing much the same thing, especially about the dinosaurs.

At times, I felt like a character in my own movie. I took Robin on the Bug Carousel, something new to the zoo. I love carousels.

I got Robin a stuffed dinosaur and we joked about my hat. This is a good way of seeing here, I’m not good at hanging around their apartment all day, relatives smell bad after a short while in my mind.

Meeting at someplace like the zoo really works, for me, and I think for Robin. Gorillas and tigers don’t hurt either.

By the end of the day, we were all wrecks, and I was glad to head out to Hudson, N.Y., where Maria and I spent the night.

Those eyes got pretty wide. I wonder if this is one of those memories that will stick. It did for Emma.

I imagined one day I had a lot of explaining to do to Robin. If she doesn’t get to ask me, Emma will tell her, or perhaps Maria. I’m happy I got to be there when Robin saw her first lion and a giant robotic dinosaur.

I do keep thinking I’ll be 80 when she is 10, I’m not sure she should get too close, but I suppose that is just another kind of old talk.