Life in the Later Lane
Baking for bodily autonomy: Nan Wiener tackles controversial end of Roe v. Wade with brownies, macaroons, muffins and more
SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – Many years ago, I spent a year baking desserts in a restaurant...
From fisherman to cook to inmate to owner: Frankie Balistreri’s odyssey to opening his dream restaurant
When his mother, Lucrezia, was diagnosed with cancer, then 25-year-old Frankie Gaetano Balistreri cared for her at...
Wisdom of the Japanese Tea Garden helped volunteer Chrisie Giordano come to accept a child’s absence
It’s an overcast summer morning, and Chrisie Giordano is leading a tour of Golden Gate Park’s Japanese...
It’s the little things that count for Margaret Lew, swept up in the world of miniature craftmanship
If you think dollhouses are just for children, you haven’t met the artisans and collectors, like Margaret...
Desire to learn mah-jongg helped Stephanie Riger overcome her own biases toward seniors
SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – Even though I’m 78 years old, I have resisted seeing myself as...
Retirement can be scary. Library worker hoping the end of his career will be the start of a happy new chapter
Seventy-one-year-old Richard Marino is on the cusp of retirement. And it’s making him anxious. He’s gone through...
German Gonzalez, the maestro of Golden Gate Park, has spread music and joy for more than 50 years
He was in the sixth grade and really wanted to be in the school band. But his...
At 67, Lauren McNamara has embarked on a new career and she’s charming customers at a downtown hotspot.
Lauren McNamara makes sure to remember where the regular clientele at Sam’s Grill like to sit. She...
You can get — almost — anything you want at Joseph Omran’s Nob Hill grocery store
LeBeau Market calls itself Nob Hill’s Community Grocery Store, where you can get almost everything: from Lay’s...
Deborah Drysdale: social justice evangelist, bridge instructor, and amateur mixologist
Summers for Deborah Drysdale meant idyllic days at her grandparents’ cattle ranch in the Blue Ridge mountains...
Jonah Raskin: Tireless Bay Area peace activist, prolific writer, and educator
Jonah Raskin was 10 in 1952, during the height of the anti-communist fervor of the Cold War....
She brought the magic to the screen, finding the perfect San Francisco location to shoot movies, TV shows, and commercials
If you’d been walking along one of the steepest streets in San Francisco one sunny afternoon in...
She relives history as a guide on the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, one of the WWII Liberty ships that brought troops and cargo to Normandy beaches
Eve Maher hands out programs to visitors boarding the SS Jeremiah O’Brien for a tour and memorial...
Pen pals from afar build rich relationship over 60 years through old-fashioned correspondence – no WhatsApp about it
A SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – My correspondence with Jutta Mengersen (now Brockhaus), the “World’s Ideal Pen...
This Mexican immigrant fought in the ring, started a dozen restaurants, raised five children, and never let defeat wear him down.
When 17-year-old Jose Heriberto Garcia came courting the young girl who’d become his wife, his future mother-in-law...
The ghosts of San Francisco’s past are still there if you only look and listen
SENIOR BEAT COLUMN: I got my first job in San Francisco nearly 40 years ago, in the...
Mutual support but separate hobbies and workshops keep crafty couple’s marriage going strong
A stained glass window by Bill and a "fishing" quilt Etta made for him adorn a hallway...
SFUSD admin behind Bay Area’s only school nurse credentialing program adds pickleball pro to her resumé
When Mary Jue, 59, handled a pickleball paddle for the first time eight years ago, it handed...
All Posts
Persistence and adaptive technology help accident victim regain proud position as the family helper
Writing checks to pay the family bills doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. For most of us, it’s a monthly chore to which we don’t give much thought. For Virginia Cheng, that routine task is a symbol of recovery from a crippling auto accident and a measure of her willingness to lend a hand to ...
Playwright, producer, actor, writer, you-name-it stays enmeshed in Bay area theater despite its ups and downs
When she was a child and the rain was so heavy they couldn’t play on the beach outside their vacation home, Linda Ayres-Frederick and her four siblings would dress up and perform plays. A closet’s sliding doors were their curtain. “I liked dressing up in my mother’s big hat with flowers and flouncing about.” But ...
Former sailor and academic researcher forged unique bond as writing and editing duo
It’s a Thursday morning and the North Beach branch of the San Francisco Public Library has just opened. Like almost every Thursday morning for the last 10 years, Janis Kaempfe and Claude Ury have settled down at one of the branches’ eight networked computers. Ury is there to polish up his review of a recently ...
Teacher, translator, artist, and full-time caretaker: Finding time is just one of his challenges
Hitoshi Shigeta has perfected the art of juggling. Not the act you might see in a circus, but the act of a man whose life has three demanding priorities. He’s a working artist and teacher of art, an English-to-Japanese translator of business documents fighting against a technological wave, and full-time caretaker to his 27-year-old autistic ...
Support housing tenant makes the most of his microwave and contributes to the nabe with ‘pedestrian protection’
How do you eat If you are on a fixed income and live in a single-room occupancy hotel? When the pandemic closed a lot of your favorite cheap food spots? If you are Christopher Coleman, you get creative with your mini fridge and microwave. “The way you cook a juicy porkchop in a microwave, you ...
Military background and delight in the job help ‘star’ Muni driver keep things running smooth
Jolt after jolt, from stop to stop, veteran San Francisco Municipal Railway driver Angel Carvajal has piloted trains, buses, and streetcars across the hills, streets, and tunnels of San Francisco. And over the years, among a mostly civil clientele, he’s dealt with knife-wielding and abusive passengers, a truck driver who plowed into his light rail ...
