YES! SUCCESS! #2 works! I can remote connect directly to openWRT router running VPN client using:
ssh root@public-ip - p xxxxxx
Thank you so much for taking the time to solve! Happy! Happy!
I very much appreciate all the persons that contributed to solving this problem. It is very difficult for lay person to describe problems in terms that experts can understand. Harder yet, I'm sure, is an expert translating problem described in lay person terms. Thank you all!
It appears as simple elegant solution that only a networking pro could provide. I will study solution and hopefully some of it will stick.