Life in the Later Lane
K.D. Sullivan: From Park Bench to Publishing House
At 15, K.D. Sullivan was homeless, hungry, and sleeping on park benches in Honolulu’s Aina Haina neighborhood....
Retired conference consultant embraces San Francisco and its history with tour of her own neighborhood
As she strolls toward the smallest park in San Francisco, Bonnie Wallsh calls back to the group...
Farm life couldn’t compete with the excitement of big cities and the challenge of the executive life
In college, Bob Britt worked as a night auditor at a roadside Holiday Inn in Southern Illinois....
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....
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...
How a dedicated teacher of young children became a dedicated civic volunteer.
Sharon Yow’s father drove a truck and tried his hand at farming. Her mother worked a switchboard...
Famed boogie-woogie pianist embroiders her performances with her own hand-crafted art
Caroline Dahl has never forgotten the glamorous, red-haired woman in a sequined dress she saw at a...
The biggest, best walk – and bath of a lifetime.
Tina Martin SENIORBEAT GUEST COLUMN – I love San Francisco, and I love to walk. So when...
‘So hard, all the losses and pain:’ Personal and world tragedies led daughter of Holocaust survivors to life of helping others help others
Juliet Rothman was living in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1992 when her 21-year-old son Daniel attempted a double...
Rock ‘n’ roll and diamonds shaped the life of Arthur Indenbaum
WRITER'S NOTE: Arthur Indenbaum died on November 28, 2025, with his wife and daughter by his side....
A lucky phone call steered him into a 54-year career as a shipping executive.
Tony Hanley felt stuck. He’d flunked out of San Francisco City College and was working at an...
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San Franciscans and San Francisco share the spotlight in venerable film festival
Two of the many films slated for San Francisco’s 12th Annual Legacy Film Festival on Aging next month are set in the city and produced by local residents. “Waiter for Life” is a short documentary about five waiters over the age of 60 who have worked for between 20 to 30 years at Scoma’s, a ...
Host of group that supports women forge new life after retirement fitting out her Dodge van to recapture the joys of childhood camping
It’s 11 o’clock on a Saturday morning and Janice Wallace is on Zoom hosting the Bay Area chapter of Women’s Connection, a national network that supports those looking for new life opportunities past retirement. Wallace joined in part to make new friends. Her husband wasn’t all that social, she said. His main interest was collecting ...
Retirement sends Vonn Scott Bair full speed into long days as actor, playwright and game developer
“Do what you want, and you will never work a day in your life.” That old adage, intones 66-year-old Vonn Scott Bair, “is a myth, a lie, a LIE.” He’s been doing what he wants since retiring eight years ago, but said, “I work longer and harder than I ever have.” It’s not that Bair ...
The play’s the thing as Michael Sullivan and the San Francisco Mime Troupe bring new meaning to “A Christmas Carol”
Michael Gene Sullivan’s version of Charles Dickens’ traditional “A Christmas Carol” is not about Scrooge, the miser who hates the holiday. Sullivan’s “A Red Carol” is “about everyone else,” a world unrepentant for its cruelties, said the 64-year-old resident director of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, appearing at San Francisco’s Z Space Theater through December ...
From weddings, funerals and proms to Dead concerts, Mandela and Pope visits, Hoogasians have been flowering SF since 1928
In San Francisco in the 1950s and 1960s, before the internet, match.com, and social media, flower stands downtown were one place a boy could meet a girl. Harold Hoogasian met his wife, Nikki, in 1974 at his dad’s Post Street flower stand, where he helped out. She’d accompanied her dad, a funeral director, who’d come ...
Seniors take on new roles with ‘Drama with Friends,’ a Zoom project that had its first live performance
Herbert and Gloria are flirting. Like spooning teens, the elderly pair are joking about their relationship and contemplating new places to have sex. Riding a horse, suggests Herbert, garnering a slightly lascivious grin in return. I loved my (late) husband, says Gloria, hinting that the usually creative man was a rather unimaginative bedmate. Herbert preens ...
