Life in the Later Lane
Three generations of a San Francisco family thrived running popular oceanside eatery overlooking Sutro Baths
It was, you might say, the last breakfast. On a summer Saturday in 2020, dozens of family...
Art and science vied for Sarah Young’s heart: Both found a place
Few who end up in the hospital are likely to be thinking about whether there’s a sufficient,...
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...
New author and former drinker embracing alternative therapies to help others break the habit
Seated in the backroom of a café on Polk Street, Kevagne Kalisch leans against the wall and...
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...
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Retired Fortune 500 development consultant brings home her lifelong interest in improving cities and communities
Renee Berger’s childhood was full of ice cream and Yankee games and parents who had “great faith and trust in me.” They were the first of many who were to guide her on her way to and through a career as a management consultant for Fortune 500 companies, top public and private foundations, government agencies ...
Love of food and baseball frame a life of service to the city of San Francisco
Ricardo Hernandez, a die-hard fan of both the San Francisco Giants and food of all kinds, had no idea that after retirement, he’d have a change of heart. From his youth in Puerto Rico through moves to other countries and settling in San Francisco – where he held positions as city Rent Board director and ...
Urban Alchemy helps the formerly incarcerated find stability while as ‘practitioners,’ they help stabilize the Tenderloin
It’s the day after Thanksgiving and Chris Purcell’s corner of the Tenderloin is uncharacteristically quiet. There’s a couple of young men sitting in the gutter smoking weed, a few homeless people pushing loaded shopping carts, and the occasional loud argument on the street. “The weed smokers don’t bother us; we’re not here to bust chops,” ...
Before ‘Riverdance,’ Irish dance school owner was learning the steps as soon as she could walk
“Riverdance,” the phenomenal stage performance of floor-pounding Irish stepdance hit American shores in 1996. But Irish dance had been in Mary Jo Murphy-Feeney’s bones for half a century. “My mother taught me to step dance as soon as I could walk,” she said. For the Irish, step-dancing has been as much a part of life ...
Not inclined to settle down, world traveler has lived from far north to far south and sometimes in between
Brenda Joyce travels light. Her one piece of luggage – a black suitcase – at the ready, the peripatetic 82-year-old divides her time between San Francisco and Chiang Mai, Thailand. They’re just two of the stops on a global itinerary that has taken her to the literal ends of the earth – the Arctic and ...
Deciding ‘that’s not who I am,’ heavy drinker quits then uses his experience – of trauma, homelessness, addiction – to help others
It’s not quite six o’clock on a June morning in 2021, and the fire alarm was going off yet again in the building Paul Hickman had called home since 1996. “Stay or go?” he asked himself, remembering the many times he wandered downstairs, responding dutifully to the frequent false alarms. Then came a pounding on ...
