Life in the Later Lane
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?”...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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,...
Robert Wachter, the doctor who is pioneering the use of artificial intelligence to treat patients
Robert Wachter is the doctor who oversees all the other doctors at the University of California, San...
Couple beat ‘fast furniture,’ pandemic and other challenges to keep upholstery shop going for nearly 50 years
J & G Upholstery stretches back farther than it looks from the sidewalk on Balboa Street. Stacks...
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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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 ...
Leader of avant-garde, female theater troupe Les Nickelettes back to performing, with Cosmic Elders
If you told 12-year-old Denise Larson that she was going to be the Mama of Les Nickelettes, a feminist experimental theater group with an anything-goes, throw-out-the-rules attitude, she would have stared at you like you had two heads. “I knew I wanted to be a stage actress at 12, but I was painfully shy with ...
Fighting for social justice never gets old: Longtime Greenpeace campaigner & Agape leader opens new door to activism
Despite a lifelong fear of heights, Karen Topakian at the age of 63 climbed up on a gigantic metal crane behind the White House five days after Donald Trump took office. She and six other Greenpeace activists unfurled a huge banner that said, “RESIST.” To prepare for the action and overcome her fear, she practiced ...
