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Mario Martinez is not a lonely man. He’s married and has four daughters, four sons-in-law and nine grandchildren. Yet the 65-year-old retired family therapist talks and thinks about loneliness quite a bit. “Sometimes isolation is forced upon us by health concerns, but a lot of times isolation is a choice,” he said. “And if you ...
Jimmye Bynum was such a talkative, sociable person that one of her employers told her she should have been a lawyer. Her natural gift to engage with others led to choices that always seemed to benefit others, as well as herself. “I always loved to talk and help people and maybe that’s why my life ...
It was one of those “aha” moments. Marianne Spencer Harvey was watching a concert on KQED some years ago. She was singing along and really enjoying herself when the camera panned across the audience: “And there were all those people with white hair. And it finally hit me. I’m in this generation,” she recalled. Still, ...
Blanche Capilos has severe hearing loss. It has its advantages, she said wryly. In noisy places like a mall or in restaurants, she can turn down the volume on her hearing aids. And she no longer has to hear her husband snore; she takes them out at night. “It’s my secret to a long, happy ...
Josephine Ma had been explaining her agency’s nutrition programs when she suddenly stood up. “Wait, I’ll be right back.” A minute later she returned holding a stack of photographs. One showed a dainty maiden with a chalk-white face, dark black eyebrows and lashes, vivid red bowed lips and a magnificent headdress. “Here’s me, and here, ...
Christine Raher had never won a trophy in her life, despite being a team competitor in tenpin bowling throughout college. But within eight years of taking up lawn bowling in San Francisco, she has twice been named Woman Lawn Bowler of the Year by the venerable Golden Gate Park club. Raher has been a member and ...
