Life in the Later Lane
Three generations of a San Francisco family thrived running popular oceanside eatery overlooking Sutro Baths
It was, you might say, the last breakfast. On a summer Saturday in 2020, dozens of family...
Art and science vied for Sarah Young’s heart: Both found a place
Few who end up in the hospital are likely to be thinking about whether there’s a sufficient,...
Baking for bodily autonomy: Nan Wiener tackles controversial end of Roe v. Wade with brownies, macaroons, muffins and more
SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – Many years ago, I spent a year baking desserts in a restaurant...
New author and former drinker embracing alternative therapies to help others break the habit
Seated in the backroom of a café on Polk Street, Kevagne Kalisch leans against the wall and...
From fisherman to cook to inmate to owner: Frankie Balistreri’s odyssey to opening his dream restaurant
When his mother, Lucrezia, was diagnosed with cancer, then 25-year-old Frankie Gaetano Balistreri cared for her at...
Wisdom of the Japanese Tea Garden helped volunteer Chrisie Giordano come to accept a child’s absence
It’s an overcast summer morning, and Chrisie Giordano is leading a tour of Golden Gate Park’s Japanese...
It’s the little things that count for Margaret Lew, swept up in the world of miniature craftmanship
If you think dollhouses are just for children, you haven’t met the artisans and collectors, like Margaret...
Desire to learn mah-jongg helped Stephanie Riger overcome her own biases toward seniors
SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – Even though I’m 78 years old, I have resisted seeing myself as...
Retirement can be scary. Library worker hoping the end of his career will be the start of a happy new chapter
Seventy-one-year-old Richard Marino is on the cusp of retirement. And it’s making him anxious. He’s gone through...
German Gonzalez, the maestro of Golden Gate Park, has spread music and joy for more than 50 years
He was in the sixth grade and really wanted to be in the school band. But his...
At 67, Lauren McNamara has embarked on a new career and she’s charming customers at a downtown hotspot.
Lauren McNamara makes sure to remember where the regular clientele at Sam’s Grill like to sit. She...
You can get — almost — anything you want at Joseph Omran’s Nob Hill grocery store
LeBeau Market calls itself Nob Hill’s Community Grocery Store, where you can get almost everything: from Lay’s...
Deborah Drysdale: social justice evangelist, bridge instructor, and amateur mixologist
Summers for Deborah Drysdale meant idyllic days at her grandparents’ cattle ranch in the Blue Ridge mountains...
Jonah Raskin: Tireless Bay Area peace activist, prolific writer, and educator
Jonah Raskin was 10 in 1952, during the height of the anti-communist fervor of the Cold War....
She brought the magic to the screen, finding the perfect San Francisco location to shoot movies, TV shows, and commercials
If you’d been walking along one of the steepest streets in San Francisco one sunny afternoon in...
She relives history as a guide on the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, one of the WWII Liberty ships that brought troops and cargo to Normandy beaches
Eve Maher hands out programs to visitors boarding the SS Jeremiah O’Brien for a tour and memorial...
Pen pals from afar build rich relationship over 60 years through old-fashioned correspondence – no WhatsApp about it
A SENIOR BEAT GUEST COLUMN – My correspondence with Jutta Mengersen (now Brockhaus), the “World’s Ideal Pen...
This Mexican immigrant fought in the ring, started a dozen restaurants, raised five children, and never let defeat wear him down.
When 17-year-old Jose Heriberto Garcia came courting the young girl who’d become his wife, his future mother-in-law...
The ghosts of San Francisco’s past are still there if you only look and listen
SENIOR BEAT COLUMN: I got my first job in San Francisco nearly 40 years ago, in the...
Mutual support but separate hobbies and workshops keep crafty couple’s marriage going strong
A stained glass window by Bill and a "fishing" quilt Etta made for him adorn a hallway...
All Posts
Aqua aerobics instructor gathers devoted congregation with Motown and gospel music, party mood and empathy for the water timid
There are almost 80 bodies joyfully bobbing and weaving, swaying and swinging –ºmaking waves in the shallow lanes at the Martin Luther King Jr. pool on Carroll Street in the Bayview. Soul music pulses out from a large speaker on the pool deck. Like a queen in her water court, right at the heart of ...
Running devotee expands friendships and perspectives joining groups for the physically disabled and those in addiction recovery
It’s 5:45 on a cool, damp Friday morning in the Tenderloin and Joe Kaniewski is about to take seven Tenderloin residents on a two-mile jog through the ‘hood. After brief warmup exercises and a sharing circle punctuated with a team cheer, the runners head over to Market Street. Less ambitious members of the group walk ...
Film by Chinatown native and his son continues to bring historic neighborhood’s political struggles and evolution to life
Cleaning out a garage isn’t usually the sort of task that changes one’s life. But when Harry Chuck, then 80, and his son were picking through the junk, they found something that did just that: a dust-covered, lacquered box that contained more than 10,000 feet of exposed film. Eight years later those long-forgotten skeins of ...
Love of Broadway musicals brought Peace Corps volunteer, English teacher and would-be expat back to settle in America
“Bali Ha’i” the ballad from “South Pacific,” one of Tina Martin’s favorite Broadway musicals, beckoned her to “come away, come away … to me … your special island.” She followed that lure – of everything foreign – to live in Mexico in her junior year of college and after college, in Tonga, Spain and Algeria. ...
Journalism school coincided with a difficult time in my life – but I went to my 40th reunion anyway
A SENIOR BEAT COLUMN Here is an odd but true distinction: I graduated from Columbia University Journalism School in 1983 – in the last class to use typewriters. The sweet cacophony of the newsroom: Clickety Clickety Clack Clack Clack. Sticky keys, coffee spills, paper stacks. Mimeographs! The most sophisticated among us had Correct-O-Ball Electric typewriters. ...
With Elvis as a mentor, Salesian Boys & Girls Club leader makes sure all the kids get a ‘big hunk of love’
Randal DeMartini is growing out his sideburns. It’s not just a fancy for a new look. It’s to raise money for the Salesian Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco. He’s the executive director but also a pretty accomplished Elvis impersonator, though he doesn’t call himself that. The fundraiser will be held Aug. 26 at ...
