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...
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Sculptor & jeweler who finds inspiration in the sea, land and found objects discovers art in her own baldness
Ann Hedges began losing her hair when she was just nine years old. She started drawing to cope, “creating a world that was mine, and one I belonged in,” she said. “Along with having alopecia areata, I was short for my age and painfully shy.” With both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Fine Arts ...
Starting over in the U.S. at 62: Her family was exiled by the Nazis then the Russians. Eventually, she followed other family members to America.
It didn’t bother Shulamis Koyfman that her family thought she’d probably fail the California Board of Nursing licensing exam; she thought so, too. After all, she was 65, she’d only lived in the United States for three years and her English was, she recalls, not so hot. “Honestly, I was 100 percent sure I would ...
Living through the worst: A personal story of one woman’s quest to regain hope and the genesis of ‘Senior Power’
We asked Senior Power! founder Margaret Graf to tell us about the biggest challenge she has faced and what helped her move through it. Margaret Graf saved herself by helping her neighbors. She was inconsolable after the deaths of her daughter and her husband. Finding little support in her Parkside neighborhood, where she had lived ...
Filipino author who helped spread the culture and history of his country still building community in S.F. and advocating for Asian Americans
When you don’t know the “other,” it’s easy to stereotype. If you want to learn about another culture, said Oscar Peñaranda, Filipino educator, author, and activist, “you need to read their literature, look at their artists.” Education, learning about others, enlarges your world and challenges your biases, and by education he refers to much more ...
WHAT TREATS SWEETEN YOUR DAY? For myself, I find it’s hard to be monogamous
“Sweetmeat” is an archaic term for confectionaries. But it rhymes with treats, and that’s what I’m talking about. Cookies and cakes, custards and ice cream, pastries and pies, puddings, and tarts. Oh my! Throughout this pandemic, one thing that kept me sane, was knowing that after lunch and dinner I would have my sweetmeat with ...
Reader’s Theater gives people the chance to perform without pressure: no memorizing lines, just building confidence in speaking in front of others
There’s no memorizing lines or pressure to perform in “Acting and Self Expression,” said instructor Kathleen Stefano, “so no stress.” Which makes it a perfect class for anyone who wants to develop self-confidence or just have fun. It’s one of the many classes hosted by the San Francisco Senior Center, housed in a 1939 Streamline ...
