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...
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Successful sous chef finds equilibrium and support after career sidetracked by health and hard times
Jon Insco has been a go-getter most of his life — always hustling for his next adventure. As a freshman at Gunderson High School in San Jose, he spotted a “Help Wanted” ad for a Denny’s in nearby Los Gatos and walked in to ask about the job. The blue-eyed teen from Aptos, who lived ...
Free speech and anti-war activist Sue Trupin found her niche caring for AIDS patients and supporting black grandmothers
Sue Trupin spent more than a decade living in a countercultural enclave in Canyon, a community in rural Contra Costa County. She had gardens, goats, and chickens, and harvested vegetables. She harvested walnuts and fetched food from the bins at the back of grocery stores. “We lived on very little; it was part of that ...
She’s a photographer and a flamenco dancer who fights to reduce maternal deaths in poor countries around the world
The difficulties that pregnant women face in impoverished parts of the world can seem overwhelming. But Stacey Ramirez, who has worked for years to improve those conditions on three continents, calls herself “a hopeless optimist.” “I have to believe that we can get to a place that is beautiful for all of us,” she said. ...
Cathedral Hill doctor became a leader in the treatment and prevention of AIDS.
As a boy, James Campbell spent after-school hours in his mother’s lab. Ruth Campbell was a doctor, the pathologist for Indiana’s South Bend Clinic. “She also had a mini lab at home with a microscope, slides, and lots of medical books, which I would pore over,” Campbell said. He was a natural to study medicine. ...
Through one-man performances, son of Holocaust survivor shares history with high school students
It’s a shocking and head-spinning image: A Jew in a German officer’s uniform is being ministered to by a Jewish concentration camp inmate. The officer is a mischlinge, a German with Jewish blood who was allowed to serve in the German military during parts of World War II. That image is at the heart of ...
Being an ‘old soul’ isn’t just about age but an attitude – best nurtured by intergenerational contact
SF SENIORBEAT GUEST COLUMN – There’s a corner of Gen Z internet culture that has popularized the trope of the ‘old soul’ by embracing analog reality. These proclaimed “old souls” renounce social media and anything digital, instead opting for vintage vinyl or a hardbound book, for example. They’ve taken to the internet in droves, insisting ...
