Special Project: City Budget Cuts
Seniors and people with disabilities fight down to the wire to save programs that serve them
As Yogi Berra once said, "it ain't over till it's over." The baseball legend was referring to sports, of course, but the adage...
Life in the Later Lane
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...
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...
Stephanie Ernst-Scott runs the last tackle shop in San Francisco. It’s been in her family for 60 years.
Walk through the doors of Gus’ Discount Fishing Tackle, and you’ll likely be greeted before you even...
All Posts
Professional dancer adds props and humor to her repertoire and senior caregiving to her career accomplishments
Helen Dannenberg came onstage wearing a beige jumpsuit then danced a duet with a large, old-fashioned, collapsible ironing board. It was part of her first 90-minute solo performance, staged at the San Francisco Repertory Theater. It was 1983 and Dannenberg – modern dancer, choreographer and skit writer – was 41. “Old and New, Borrowed and ...
Babysitting dilemma helps carve career path for S.F. Chronicle writer Ruthe Stein
Ruthe Stein’s parents unwittingly imbued her with a love of the movies, a romance that would lead to a lifelong career. Her dad, beleaguered with the responsibility of caring for his daughter on Saturday afternoons, would drop her off at one of Chicago’s giant movie houses. “The movies were his babysitter,” Stein said. “He never checked ...
Former supervisor and judge – and unstoppable voice of conservatives – Quentin Kopp retains his signature querulousness
The welcome sign at Quentin Kopp’s office is hardly welcoming. “Attention” it says. “You are being watched.” Beyond the sign is a path that flanks the side of a nondescript, one-story professional building on West Portal Avenue. Kopp’s office suite, which he shares with several other attorneys, is in the back of the building. There’s ...
HOW DO YOU TAKE YOUR JOE? My coffee ritual has shifted – for a mid-day lift instead of a.m. awakening
What are your coffee or tea routines or experiences? Have they changed? I don’t remember when I started drinking coffee after my mid-day meal instead of first thing in the morning, but that’s my ritual now, and I really look forward to it: Organic French Roast ground for Chemex; I add almond milk, and it’s ...
Never did one writer have so much fun: Carl Nolte’s career put him up close and personal with the good, the bad and the ugly
Journalism, these days, is a young person’s game. As newspapers fold or reduce their staffs, veteran reporters, editors and photographers are laid off, pushed into early retirement, or simply give up on the business they love. But not Carl Nolte. At 88, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist is likely the oldest working journalist in the ...
Pharmaceuticals saleswoman pivots to career in naturopathic medicine
While working for a pharmaceutical company selling drugs to relieve hypertension, Victoria Hamman remembers, she read a study that said exercise and diet could cure it. Although a doctor told her people would never follow through, the idea was planted. Today, as a doctor of naturopathy, exercise and diet plans are standards in the toolbox of therapies she prescribes ...
