Life in the Later Lane
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
Social justice lawyer and activist infusing others with her love of SF’s Great Blue Herons and dedication to conservation
One day in 1993, on her daily walk from her Richmond District home to Golden Gate Park’s...
April 29, 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
Bass playing lawyer takes on the landlords when seniors call for help
During the day, you’ll find Thomas Drohan in court or at his law office on Mission Street....
April 5, 2026
Former SFSU teacher shifts to helping union workers build leadership abilities
Like some people need coffee, Joan Wong needs to walk – and talk. Mornings, she puts in...
March 25, 2026
Joe Edley, a three-time national champion, has been racking up great Scrabble scores for decades
Joe Edley tucks his co-authored book, “Everything Scrabble,” under his arm and surveys the room. Around him,...
March 16, 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
She can’t see, but guides patients at SF General, dodges the maskless on MUNI and seldom lets obstacles dampen her high spirits
Here’s a thought: If you are blind, how do you know if people are wearing their masks? If you are disabled and blind, it’s scary stepping off the sidewalk to avoid a loud-talking, apparently non-masked person. If you are disabled and blind and riding the 14-Mission, the 38- Geary, or the 9-San Bruno every day, ...
Orchids a beacon of light for medical researcher/ clinical pharmacologist who switched to patient care during dark days of AIDS
Joanne Whitney sits in a large conference room, eyes focused on an interviewer, arms slightly raised, palms up and in a pronounced Bronx accent says, “What can I tell you; I’m eclectic.” She points to a long list of diverse roles in pharmacy, medical education and public service over a career spanning five decades. When ...
Teaching children, students and adults about planets, black holes and asteroids is this astronomer’s true calling
Famous people and even not-so-famous people in San Francisco have streets named after them. But Andrew Fraknoi, a well-known science educator and astronomer, goes those long-dead presidents, generals, and madams one better: He’s the only person in the city to have an asteroid named after him. The International Astronomical Union dubbed a hunk of space rock ...
What’s your attitude toward getting older? Do you, like Johnny Mercer, ‘Accentuate the Positive?’
Next year I’m turning 80. When I thought about the chronological number, I felt scared because that sounded really old. I feel better when I come across reports of 80+ people doing things that seem amazing. There’s the “Nimbleweed Nomad,” otherwise known as M.J. “Sunny” Eberhard, 83, who started walking when he retired 25 years ...
A history of struggles and challenges, but El Tecolote, its founder and City College journalism chair persisted
Juan Gonzales doesn’t discourage easily. His high school guidance counselor didn’t think he was a candidate for college. The faculty at San Francisco State University didn’t think he had what it takes to teach journalism. And the Spanish language press in San Francisco’s Mission District didn’t think publishing a bilingual newspaper would be a success. ...
Engineer helped make big strides in tech, but also in volleyball, photography, Hawaiian music revival – and neighborhood connectedness
When any one of us does an online or in-person banking transaction, do we wonder about the “what ifs?” What if our funds could not be retrieved? For the most part, we don’t wonder. That’s because engineers like Steve Hayashi and his team at Tandem Computers were among the first to build a fault-tolerant computer ...
