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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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 1984 you might have seen a strange sight: A grand piano with a musician seated on its attached bench careering down vertiginous 22nd Street. Clad in a feathered hat, jacket and tails, and a bright red glove on ...
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 stood next to a gangway atop the deck of the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, a WWII Liberty ship parked at Pier 35 at Fisherman’s Wharf. A volunteer on the ship, she greeted visitors as they arrived for a special memorial cruise for Armed Services Day on May 18. Petite and stylish, the native of ...
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 Pal,” began in 1963, when we were both in high school. She was in Detmold, Germany, and I was in Columbia, South Carolina. Since then, we’ve met in my home in San Francisco and in her home in ...
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 was so outraged that she ran him off her property – waving her pistol and shooting at his feet. “I beat it out of there, oh si, senor,” Garcia recalled. “I came back the next day to state ...
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 Flood Building at Market and Powell streets. A chubby, cheerful, uniformed lobby attendant pressed the elevator buttons for me. The lobby was marble and, oh wonderful, there was a Woolworth’s on the ground floor. I loved to sit ...
Mutual support but separate hobbies and workshops keep crafty couple’s marriage going strong
They met on the dance floor of the Avenue Ballroom on Taraval Street. Etta Hallock was an instructor, Bill Lafferty a student. She liked Bill because he wasn’t pompous like other men she had met. “He was just Bill.” He liked her because she didn’t hold too tight. Other women he’d dated didn’t like him ...
