Life in the Later Lane
Retired scientist, avid cyclist, and world traveler faces the challenge of Alzheimer’s
For many high school biology students, dissecting a frog is an unpleasant rite of passage. But for...
A tale of love and lighting on Divisadero Street
How deeply did Yury Budovlya fall for Liya Klets, an 18-year-old Siberian beauty? When she traveled to...
“Mr. Mahjong” teaches San Francisco to love a 19th-century Chinese game
When Andrew Keeler was five, he would fall asleep in his living room to the sound of...
Practicality atop an adventurous spirit has Potrero Hill resident contemplating eventual move even as she continues to build community
Contact her at robinevans@sfseniorbeat.com. Even as she speaks, calmly, about uprooting herself from the neighborhood she’s lived in...
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
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 home. She craved her favorite Sicilian dishes and called out her wishes from her bed. “ ‘Frankie, pasta con sarde!’ ”(Pasta with sardines); “ ‘Frankie, sfingi!’ (powdered sugar donuts with ricotta filling) “I was running back and forth, ...
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 Tea Garden. She pauses in front of the large statue of Buddha and sheds a few tears. The tea garden, she says, is the place where she has come to terms with her daughter’s painful decision to leave ...
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 Lew, who play in the Lilliputian world of miniature furnishings and accoutrements. Lew’s passion for miniatures surfaced in childhood – she “always liked the little things for my dollhouse” – and reignited in 2003, when at 60, she ...
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 a senior. It’s not just age, it’s accepting the negative image I have of seniors. Even though I’ve never experienced ageism myself, I nonetheless defined being a senior as being elderly, frail, sweet, and a little dotty. I ...
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 other transitions, from coming out as gay, moving from his family home in the Bronx to New York’s East Village, and then leaving New York City for San Francisco. He traded a rambunctious gay lifestyle for a rather ...
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 parents told him there was no money to buy or rent an instrument. His older sister was dating a guy whose brother had a trumpet in his closet. The horn soon made its way to the wannabe musician ...
