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...
All Posts
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 ...
Podcast hosts leaned into aging, a topic they call ‘cutting edge’ and ‘sexy’
They met harvesting bananas on a kibbutz in Israel, part of a summer tour introducing young Jews to the then-new country. These days they’re working together as the co-hosts of “Not Born Yesterday,” a half-hour podcast focusing on the challenges and joys of aging. Miriam Goodman and Lynn Winter Gross went on to become college ...
Her name honors a famed New Zealand author. With her first novel published, Sally Abbott is also leading the life of a writer.
Sally Abbott believes her role as a novelist was written before she was born. It started with her middle name: Abbott’s mother was so enamored of the renowned short-story writer Katherine Mansfield that she gave her second daughter the middle name “Mansfield.” To top it off, both Katherine and Sally were born in the same ...
Retiree wants your blood: Donor Ambassador devotes his all to Red Cross collection efforts
Mark Sugarman wants to repair the world. The 79-year-old Financial District resident has spent his whole life following that maxim, which in Hebrew is known as Tikkun Olam. He does that through volunteering, which he refers to as “my job.” His latest focus is on the Red Cross’s Market Street branch, where he volunteers each ...
Bruce Neuburger: The life of a student radical turned farmworker, turned author
Bruce Neuburger was never an armchair radical. Organizing against the Vietnam War while in the Coast Guard earned him an early, though honorable, discharge from the service. He helped organize GIs at Fort Ord and spent nearly a decade as a lettuce worker in California’s fields, supporting efforts to improve the miserable working conditions endured ...
