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,...
All Posts
Potrero Avenue ‘collective’ soup kitchen is the hostess with the mostest: Everything’s free, no government paperwork or religion attached
It’s lunchtime at Martin de Porres House of Hospitality, and the Potrero Avenue soup kitchen is abuzz with activity. A few dozen people are sitting down to a meal of macaroni salad, vegetable soup, and tea. Others are lined up for a shower. A volunteer is distributing socks and other clothes, and a few guests ...
Retired teacher who is legally blind memorizes the streets she travels to avoid “trippers”
It’s a walk of only about two-tenths of a mile from Meg Gorman’s apartment on Laguna Street to Geary Boulevard, which she crosses on her way to the Japan Center. But Gorman is legally blind and must contend with more than a dozen places where the sidewalk is broken or raised by tree roots. She ...
Sunset native’s determination to show district past fascinating not boring sparks late-in-life career as San Francisco historian
With the exception of Golden Gate Park, San Francisco’s Sunset District is well off the beaten tourist track. The sprawling neighborhood bordering the south side of Golden Gate Park has its attractions – Ocean Beach, Stern Grove, Depression-era murals – but its foggy weather, wide and sometimes treeless streets, and row upon row of lookalike, ...
‘Whatever happened to ‘that girl?’ Traveling while older offers challenges but nothing this former tour guide couldn’t handle
SENIOR BEAT COLUMN Whenever I go through airport security, I light up their machines like a Chernobyl chicken. “Female Assist!” the cry goes up for a pat down and I get that look. I explain that a car wreck in my youth left titanium holding my knee and hip together, but somehow my images show ...
Norms never held her back: Championship horsewoman, groundbreaking feminist, daring travel writer
Diane LeBow was a solo traveler when “one was an odd number for a woman traveler,” she has written. And she visited countries and people not on the typical tourist list: Libya, Morocco, Syria, Sulawesi, Indonesia, Mongolia, and Afghanistan. She stayed from weeks to months, got to know the locals, and had romances with some. ...
Buttons, strings and fabric scraps: Artist creates intricate designs and portraits from bits and pieces
Marie Bergstedt finds art in the everyday: buttons, fabrics, bits of discarded clothing, and string. She combines those mundane materials into expressive representations of a person she’s known or observed. Her subjects range from relatives, friends and associates to street people. A self-described fabric artist, she works with natural and synthetic fibers to create her ...
