Life in the Later Lane
Former art galley president helps people craft their deepest feelings in ‘lasting letters’ to loved ones
Looking out at Monterey Bay from Santa Cruz early one morning last year, a pair of silhouetted...
September 1, 2026
S.F. protest’s Tin Man has a history of making good trouble on behalf of empathy and kindness
Arthur Persyko loves to make trouble. The good kind, that is. As a young man, he protested...
August 24, 2026
Born to dance: Tammy Thornton struts her stuff with the Warriors’ senior dance team
It’s game night at San Francisco’s Chase Center and the Golden State Warriors are not the only...
August 10, 2026
Childhood bond with an older neighbor steered law officer’s choice of career and community work
A tarnished silver coin from 1964, likely worth only $10 to any dealer, reminds Richard Lyons Corriea...
August 2, 2026
As a teacher, playwright & screenwriter, Cary Pepper has lots of inside Hollywood info to share
You probably stream most of your movies. But if you happen to rent a film on old-style...
July 15, 2026
All-women punk band still on stage thanks to leader’s career, which started in a mortuary
Invite Klara Lux somewhere, and she’ll always show up early – except on the rare occasion when...
July 6, 2026
Playwright Lynne Kaufman, the author of two dozen plays and five novels, is still going strong, despite some hiccups
The day after Lynne Kaufman retired in 2005, she woke up in tears. “What had I done?”...
June 29, 2026
A win for people power: Supervisors and mayor restore millions of dollars in cut to services for city’s most vulnerable
A months-long campaign by advocates for seniors, the disabled and other vulnerable populations has convinced San Francisco's...
Following in the footsteps of heroes: My visit to the cradles of Civil Rights
SF SENIORBEAT COLUMN – March 17, 1886. A date you probably never considered. Carroll County, Mississippi. A...
June 4, 2026
Couple’s script for their own movie? Shared creative passions and a bent for banter
“I'm Chiquita Banana, and I'm here to say, bananas have to ripen in a certain way,” Margot...
May 28, 2026
Nonprofit director is happy to bug you, whether you’re 2 or 92, about saving the wild
If you grow up in Los Angeles, where do you find the wild? Norm Gershenz is not...
April 14, 2026
As the city’s older population swells, seniors who can no longer live at home face high costs, limited choices
EDITOR'S NOTE: See full profiles of the seniors interviewed by clicking links within the story. A panoply...
All Posts
Photography instructor says it’s easy – and a way for retirees to get to know their community, meet new people
Jeff Weston, who has been teaching photography part-time at City College of San Francisco since 1988, said people can learn photography easily by watching a video on YouTube. But that, he said can be lonely. Especially for seniors. As for what to photograph, he suggested just walking around the neighborhood. “We all like to think ...
Care, confidence and connections shot portrait photographer to heights of San Francisco and Hollywood social worlds
Russ Fischella was struck by the cover of a Life magazine in the fall of 1970 that featured Martha Mitchell, the flamboyant socialite and wife of then-Attorney General John Mitchell. The glamorized photo transformed the conventionally pretty, middle-aged woman into a beauty, he recalled. At the age of 20 and with only a few photography ...
Aqua aerobics instructor gathers devoted congregation with Motown and gospel music, party mood and empathy for the water timid
There are almost 80 bodies joyfully bobbing and weaving, swaying and swinging –ºmaking waves in the shallow lanes at the Martin Luther King Jr. pool on Carroll Street in the Bayview. Soul music pulses out from a large speaker on the pool deck. Like a queen in her water court, right at the heart of ...
Running devotee expands friendships and perspectives joining groups for the physically disabled and those in addiction recovery
It’s 5:45 on a cool, damp Friday morning in the Tenderloin and Joe Kaniewski is about to take seven Tenderloin residents on a two-mile jog through the ‘hood. After brief warmup exercises and a sharing circle punctuated with a team cheer, the runners head over to Market Street. Less ambitious members of the group walk ...
Film by Chinatown native and his son continues to bring historic neighborhood’s political struggles and evolution to life
Cleaning out a garage isn’t usually the sort of task that changes one’s life. But when Harry Chuck, then 80, and his son were picking through the junk, they found something that did just that: a dust-covered, lacquered box that contained more than 10,000 feet of exposed film. Eight years later those long-forgotten skeins of ...
Love of Broadway musicals brought Peace Corps volunteer, English teacher and would-be expat back to settle in America
“Bali Ha’i” the ballad from “South Pacific,” one of Tina Martin’s favorite Broadway musicals, beckoned her to “come away, come away … to me … your special island.” She followed that lure – of everything foreign – to live in Mexico in her junior year of college and after college, in Tonga, Spain and Algeria. ...
