Life in the Later Lane
A face of medical care in the Mission, Kattia Balestier has been on the front lines for nearly 40 years
Contact her at naomimarcus@sfseniorbeat.com The patient stormed out of the doctor’s office and headed straight for the...
Early computer nerd – now a regular at future-focused public space with bar – slowly realized he “was in the middle of something big”
Contact her at myrakrieger@sfseniorbeat.com When Theo Armour was a young boy, he played a lot, but not with...
Out of the classroom and onto the airplane. Peter Mundy takes his middle-school students around the world.
Peter Mundy wants nothing more than to educate, motivate, and mentor his young students -- and to...
A life of resilience: Escaping Soviet antisemitism, Tatyana Yasnovsky built a life in San Francisco as she practiced psychiatry
For Tatyana Yasnovsky, a retired psychiatrist and émigré from the former Soviet Union, her arrival in America...
Things of heaven and earth – but mostly earth – have captivated neuropsychologist who once pondered the priesthood
When he retired in 2009, Charles Vella began volunteering at the California Academy of Sciences. He became...
With more than 28,000 movies and TV shows on hand, Colin Hutton’s Video Wave store has survived the onslaught of Netflix and Amazon Prime
It was a rainy winter afternoon, and it wasn’t until Video Wave, the last standalone movie rental...
Sixty years later, a writer returns to her childhood home in Mexico and savors the sights, smells and flavors of a changed San Miguel de Allende
Have you ever wondered about retiring to Mexico? Not me, no expat life for me. But I...
‘Wild writing’ softens clinical healthcare leader’s shift to solo career and enriches retirement
Kathryn Santana Goldman showed an affinity for science as early as grammar school when she captured and...
Host of group that supports women forge new life after retirement fitting out her Dodge van to recapture the joys of childhood camping
It’s 11 o’clock on a Saturday morning and Janice Wallace is on Zoom hosting the Bay Area...
Retirement sends Vonn Scott Bair full speed into long days as actor, playwright and game developer
"Do what you want, and you will never work a day in your life." That old adage,...
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Growing need for senior models opens unexpected new career for retired executive assistant
The linoleum on the floor of the attic bedroom in Seattle, where Alice Arikawa grew up, was embedded with the image of a prince looking longingly at the blond, blue-eyed, long-legged young woman. She would stare at it for hours. “I wasn’t anything like the blond girl – being short, stout, and Japanese, but I ...
High school programming prodigy keeps engaged in retirement with bridge, tennis and little spaceships
Bill Char was a tech bro before it was cool to be a tech bro. He learned to program a minicomputer when he was still in high school – back in the late ’60s, and early ’70s. He was so devoted to Star Trek that he conceived and helped develop a first-generation computer game called ...
Longtime business owners committed to keeping neighbors happy with chocolates from around the world and quirky packaging
Enter Jack Epstein’s cool, narrow shop and you walk a chocolate gauntlet down a central aisle: bars from around the world line the walls on either side. Individual confections, truffles, and foil-wrapped hearts perch on the lower shelves. No wonder the longtime Noe Valley business is called Chocolate Covered. He sources the sweet-smelling wares from ...
Alcatraz docent wants you to know there’s something special to see on the island – and it’s not just the cells of jailbirds
The 1.7 million tourists who visit Alcatraz every year are typically here to traipse through the cell block that held famous jailbird Al Capone. But in summer, there’s something special few are aware of. “Tourists don’t know this is a bird sanctuary,” said Kimberlie Moutoux, a 61-year-old retired elementary school art teacher and grandmother to seven ...
Retired AT&T exec and architect of local online literary review has a passion for nurturing other people’s talents
When he was young, Joe Catalano loved to “play with words,” and some of his earliest childhood memories, he said, are of writing. But college, a career, and family intervened and he “put down his pen” for decades. Now 76 and retired after a long career practicing law, Catalano can be found writing, editing, and ...
Only views from his window: Artist overcoming shyness shares paintings reflecting a life of chaos converted to calm
Though Glenn Stultz has evolved from pencils and watercolors to acrylics and oil, his pictures depict the same view: backyards and houses seen from the windows of his Section 8 apartment in San Francisco’s Ocean View neighborhood. Too shy to enroll in a drawing class, he taught himself by studying big, coffee table books. His ...
