Cultivating connections to help seniors and people with disabilities age and thrive at home.
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Historian Chris Carlsson will present a look at San Francisco’s complicated labor history, a history not made by politicians, business owners, and celebrities as much as it was by the unsung and often ignored streetcar conductors, secretaries, ironworkers, organizers, dockworkers, musicians, cabbies, and all the people that really shaped San Francisco through the years. Like so much of the capitalist world economy, San Francisco and California made the leap into modernity in no small part thanks to enslaved and coerced labor of Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, and sailors!
HOW TO JOIN THE CLASS:
To join by phone, dial 888-475-4499 (toll-free) or 669-900-6833 (local).
Enter Meeting ID: 865 6747 4200, then press # twice.
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To create a friendly environment and minimize interruptions, we will close the activity to new participants 15 minutes after the start time.
In San Francisco, February brings us Valentine’s Day, plum trees in bloom, and every four years a Leap Day. What tale of love/valentine’s/missed connections/leap year or Sadie Hawkins dances do you have? Join Laura Atkins and Sherri Sawyer to read/tell or perform your favorite personal story of February.
HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT:
To join by phone, dial 888-475-4499 (toll-free) or 669-900-6833 (local). Enter Meeting ID: 865 6747 4200, then press # twice.
To join with video, click this link: https://zoom.us/j/86567474200 to register and join. Wait in the “waiting room” until the activity is ready to start.
To create a friendly environment and minimize interruptions, we will close the activity to new participants 15 minutes after the start time. The above link will work on your tablet or your computer. You’ll be prompted to download a Zoom app the first time you use Zoom. If you’re using a PC or Mac, you can join from your web browser without using the Zoom software.
Fran Roberts is still on the move, with a life that encompasses San Francisco and the East Bay.
SENIOR BEAT – In March, 1964, a 9.2 earthquake and multiple tsunamis hit Kodiak, Alaska. Fran Roberts was 38 and working there as draftsperson for the government. She was as much concerned about saving her car as her life.
“You had to have a car to get around, and I had just been to the States to buy a new Volkswagon Bug and have it shipped up there,” she said. “If my car was ruined, I’d have to wait a year to buy a new one.”
So, as Roberts was running hither and yon following military orders to get to higher ground, she was also pleading with military vehicles to help pull her car. “At one point I was sitting in my car and water came up to my chest. I thought I was going to drown.”
After the tsunamis stopped, Roberts started bailing saltwater out of her car. “It was then that I got to work,” she said. “The VW Bug came with a packet of tools. I took out each piece of the motor, cleaned it, and laid it out in the order I removed it. When they were all cleaned, I reassembled the parts from last to first.”
Roberts succeeded in restoring her car with the same grit and determination that had defined her life until that point. “We lost our house in The Depression when our father deserted the family,” she said, “I saw my mother pick herself up and do what she had to do to keep us four kids fed and clothed.”
From earning a scholarship to a high-school boarding school to a long government career as a draftsman to owning multiple homes in the Bay Area, throughout her travels, living her life as a single woman, Roberts, 92, always saw the rainbow – not the clouds.
Her Irish blue eyes sparkle with a keen intelligence that has guided her adventures from Kentucky to Washington, D.C., Guam, Alaska and finally to San Francisco. “I kept moving to get a better job and make more money,” she said.
Roberts was born in Kentucky in 1926. Her mother’s great-great grandfather, Elder John Rice, born 1760, the first Baptist minister to be ordained in Kentucky, became the first Baptist minister of the Shawnee Run Baptist Church, about 30 miles from Lexington.
After her father’s desertion, her mother’s widowed uncle needed a housekeeper. Uncle Mitt had a grand southern farm house located about a mile from the small town of Wilmore, Ky. “For me, life on the farm was a child’s dream. I roamed the acreage of the large farm, watched the farm hands work, loved all the farm animals, and watched things grow,” Roberts said.
Even though it was the heart of the Depression, the Roberts family thrived. “We had plenty of food because we grew everything except coffee and sugar,” she said. “We gave platefuls of food to ragged men who wandered by and always had guests drop by unannounced on Sundays.”
Grade school was a one-room schoolhouse. Being unaware of the other children’s extreme poverty, Roberts thought their dress was a lark. “I also wanted to wear burlap on my feet and adult clothing that came down to my ankles.”
But Roberts’ mother, worried her daughter was getting “too countrified,” sent her to live with an aunt in Mattoon, Ill., where she attended the fourth grade . There, she was expected to excel. “Everyone talked faster and sharper, but I was more advanced in all studies except math and music,” Roberts said. She did excel, but missed the country life.
She returned home after a year to find her mother’s circumstances had drastically changed after Uncle Mitt’s death. “My mother took any work she could get,” she said. “After being forced out of a bookkeeping job, mother went to Nicholasville, six miles away, to work as a clerk in the County Court House. She had taught herself to type.”
Roberts’ mother then got a better job translating county records from Old English and re-typing them. “There was no parent to watch over us from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and my youngest brother became a street kid and eventually got into a lot of trouble,” she said.
Roberts felt overwhelmed caring for her brother and taking care of household chores. “At one point, I asked my mother to put me in an orphanage,” she said. “That didn’t go over well with the relatives. They said I hurt my mother’s feelings.”
Also bursting with ambition for a better life, Roberts was energized when she overheard a girl in her class talking about a scholarship to a girls’ boarding high school in Midway, Ky. When the girl turned the scholarship down, Roberts applied and secured her ticket out of Wilmore. “My mother didn’t want me to go because I was her helper,” said Roberts, “but my drama teacher made the case for future possibilities.”
Four years at Midway Academy gave Roberts the chance to shine. She rose to the top academically and demonstrated assertive skills as squad leader of her basketball and volleyball teams. Seeing her potential, Roberts said her teachers advised her against taking shorthand, saying, “They’ll make a secretary out of you and that’s not your calling.”
In her senior year in 1944, government officials visited the school and selected Roberts as one of four girls to work in the Veterans’ Administration in Washington, D.C. “I was so excited,” Roberts said.
She started as a clerk in the personnel office. She wasn’t a fast typist. But she did have some library experience, so she was assigned as an assistant in the general legal and medical reference library. “I loved being around doctors and lawyers – smart people. It was a great learning experience.”
She supplemented her income working nights in a movie theater and weekends in Lerner’s department store. She still found time to have fun with friends picnicking and going on bike rides.
In Washington, D.C., homeowners rented out rooms to get by and would even sleep in their basement if it freed up more space to rent. Roberts went from room to room and finally to the “luxury” of a rooming house. “At one point, I slept in a closet. Another time, I had to share a bed with another young woman.”
During her time in the Capitol, Roberts became engaged, but decided not to marry because of her chaotic family situation. “I broke that boy’s heart. In the future, I promised myself I would always tell anyone I dated that I had decided not to marry.”
At 21, her stellar work record landed her a clerking job in Guam. “I had never heard of Guam, had no idea where it was, but I wanted to make more money, and they were offering a 25 percent raise with no taxes,” she said. Her first year was not the best time in her life. “I got there with 10 cents in my pocket. I was 2,000 miles from home.” All she was thinking about was the money. “I did what I had to do.”
Roberts started dating an engineer who taught her drafting. “I loved geometry in high school, and drafting looked like it was based on those principles,” Roberts said. They obtained permission to use the drafting office after hours, and Roberts was on her way to a new career. After her clerking contract was up, she was offered a drafting job on probation. Instead, she moved to Dayton, Ohio, to be near her mother, whose second husband had just left her. “It was my greatest desire to always take care of my mother.”
Hoping to buy her mother a house, she had saved up $3,500 for a deposit. But she almost lost it thanks to an unscrupulous real estate broker. “It was then that I learned I had to toughen up and not be so naïve and trusting.” Once she settled her mother in a house, Roberts returned to Guam, completed her probation, and became a full-fledged draftsman. “I was a natural. I loved the type of work engineers did. I was welcomed into their circle. I had a new, wonderful life.”
Yet in four years, she found herself becoming restless. In 1956, she got a job in the Presidio in San Francisco drawing construction plans and wiring diagrams. After four years there, Roberts applied for and landed a draftsman job in Kodiak, Alaska, working for the Navy. She loved the work and the outdoors. She went camping and fishing. “I had a gun but never killed anything. And a friend gave her a dog, half-wolf, because she thought Roberts was lonely.
“I was lucky. Kodi was fiercely loyal and protective and saved my life when I tried to go near wild horses,” Roberts said. “Apparently, male wild horses don’t like the scent of women and they will attack. Kodi jumped up on my chest and kept pushing me away. I knew she was warning me off.”
After 13 years in Kodiak, Roberts began suffering pain in her hand that hindered her drafting abilities. So she became a realty specialist, working in the acquisition and management of property. After a year in that position, she returned to the San Francisco and snagged the one opening for a realty specialist at the Presidio. She oversaw the permit process of the use of military property by non-military personal, a movie production, for example, and handled all legal correspondence. “I needed to know Army regulations to protect the military against legal action,” she explained.
Since retiring in 1984, Roberts travels, attends exercise classes through City College San Francisco, and spends time with friends she meets in senior centers in San Francisco and in the East Bay. She lives in both places, spending the weekends in Albany. She drives her Toyota Matrix across the Bay Bridge to the Albany home that was her mother’s until her death at 95. “I also have my pickup truck in Albany so I can cart stuff for the yard. Cars still mean so much to me.”
The American Society on Aging held its annual conference in San Francisco in March. (Photo by Robin Evans)
SENIOR BEAT – I was excited. Never having been to a major conference of any kind, I felt fortunate to land a press pass to the American Society on Aging annual conference last month in San Francisco.
My first session was Monday morning at 9 a.m., so I set my iPhone alarm for 6:30. But I had never used the alarm and didn’t trust it would work – I’m such a Luddite. I woke and 5 a.m. and dozed and woke off and on until the alarm went off – as scheduled.
The conference was held at the Hilton Union Square, which I was sure was right on Union Square. So I got off the subway at Stockton Street and walked up the hill to discover not the Hilton but the Hyatt. The doorman pointed me toward Mason Street. Heading up Geary Street, I worried I was getting too far afield of Union Square. This time, I asked a woman on the street for directions. “I’m from out-of-town, honey, why don’t you look it up on your phone,” she said.
“Oh, sure,” I stammered, quite abashed.
Then there it was – right around the corner at 333 O’Farrell.
By that time, I was frazzled, but glad I had set out early. Monday was registration day. I envisioned long lines – and wasn’t disappointed.
The next question on my conference journey: Is there a special line for the press? The monitor I asked didn’t know, so she set out to find out. Tailing her until she found the appropriate registrar, I was elated to find myself at the front of the line. What a coup!
I loved my badge. I felt it was a symbol of belonging to this large sea of humanity: 3,000 people from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia gathered to share information to help older Americans and their families. (Conference attendees represent a population diametrically opposite of that segment of Congress constantly beating the drum for cutting social services, including Medical and Medicare.)
My first seminar was called “Disrupting Aging,” although it was really about disrupting ageism. The former seems to imply you can freeze-frame yourself at 65. The session was a collaboration of the American Association of Retired Persons of Connecticut and the nonprofit education company Borrow My Glasses. Together they created a simple interactive video and card game that flips aging on its head. Like Humpty Dumpty, you put it all together again – but with a brand-new perspective. The women presenters were passionate, up-beat, creative and gracious. I was jazzed.
After lunch, I jack-rabbited around to a couple of seminars, quickly exiting ones that were uninteresting to me. Monday afternoon’s general assembly was fun and informative, but perhaps not in the way its title implied: “How Technology is Reinventing Aging.” It featured a discussion of developing technology in the field of aging. A woman from a health care company moderated a panel of young to middle-age tech innovators. One of them was from Great Call, which makes Jitterbug phones but also fall-detecting wearables, such as bracelets.
And on hand to offer feedback throughout the discussion – from a generational point of view – was researcher Kate Lorig, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and director of the Stanford Patient Education Research Center.
Although she found no fault with the bracelet, for other products focusing on surveillance, her comments ranged from “It makes me feel dumb; I don’t like being told what to do; It threatens my privacy;” to “The directions are incomprehensible” and “OK, boys, back to the drawing board.”
Her sentiments were underscored by a short video showing an older man outsmarting smart technology: a cane that beeped to signal time for a walk; a fork that evaluated his food intake; and a bed sensor making sure he got enough sleep. He eventually tires of the surveillance – as would I.
He finds a neighborhood kid to walk his cane. A pile of books on his bed fakes the sensor into thinking he’s turning in at the designated time. At dinner, he eats pasta with a regular fork, while stirring the smart fork in a pile of vegetables – on a separate plate. The boisterous audience response indicated most people in sync with his frustration.
Every conference has its exhibit hall. This one was no exception. There were many helpful vendors making attendees aware of products such as a tele-rehabilitation solution that suits patients who have had a stroke, and Parkinson’s and orthopedic problems; chef-designed meal-delivery services; and adaptive telephone equipment.
Along with the helpful agencies and research companies, anti-aging companies were at work marketing ways to keep skin wrinkle-free with moisturizers and electrical face-lift equipment. One moisturizing company was selling white truffle day moisturizer. Truffles are a fungus sniffed out in nature by pigs and dogs. On the usual unpronounceable list of ingredients, white truffle came in 20th.
I finished the conference with two inspiring sessions, on malnutrition among older adults and stigmas still attached to mental illness.
Affecting all socio-economic classes, malnutrition is hard for medical personnel and caregivers to recognize. There are no screening tools, thus no ways to evaluate or intervene. Yet research shows 25 percent of Medicare recipients have “food insecurity,” which means they don’t have reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.
Doctors don’t always ask patients about their food intake because they can’t offer solutions, according to Uche Akobundu, senior director of Nutrition Strategy and Impact for Meals on Wheels. Panelists representing other national agencies said their organizations are developing tools to help doctors and caregivers identify populations at risk for malnutrition, educate them and help them improve their nutrition.
The last session focused on the innovative ways a group of social workers from New York City incorporate mental health services into their senior centers’ Asian population. In that culture, where negative emotions have been identified with insanity, the stigma is particularly dire. In an effort to build patients’ trust, mental health workers participate in senior center activities, becoming friendly with potential clients.
My conference days came to an end. I was sad and hopeful: Sad to leave this group of people dedicated to the well-being of others, but hopeful that many good changes in the world of aging are being cultivated and put into action.
I was particularly moved by a social worker on last panel as she recited a Jewish proverb she lives by, “If you’re saved one life, you’re saved the world.”
Sunset residents find out when there’s a party or other event at the “Blue House” when the owners put up a sign.
SENIOR BEAT – Nothing brings a community together more than a neighborhood party where everyone is invited. And none so much as the eclectic and sometimes eccentric gatherings hosted by Inner Sunset residents Barbara and Paul.
No one was surprised earlier this year to hear that Barbara was throwing another shindig. Barbara and her late husband started hosting backyard happenings in 2007. (Now 60, she prefers for security reasons to keep her last name to herself.) Her invitation to a barbecue was posted on the fence: “Bring finger-sized desserts, drinks and I will supply the meat. Enjoy our friendly guitar-duo.” Anyone who saw the sign was welcome.
The variety of these often impromptu get-togethers tickles the imagination. Everyone remembers the Haunted House, said Martha Etherton, director of the Inner Sunset Park Neighborhood Neighbors association. It “was so scary – someone reached out and grabbed my ankle.”
A passer-by might suspect something or someone special lies behind the big blue house near Sixth and Irving. Signs of this would be the numerous mobiles, chimes and other hanging art, tickling and chiming over lovely flowering plants.
Of all the events she and her husband sponsored, Barbara is most fond of the Book Blast. “We had so many helpers, sorting books every Thursday night for 10 weeks.” She and Paul sought donations on Craigslist, then picked them up in their car. “Sometimes we had so many books in the car, Paul had to walk behind the car on the way home.” That year they collected 10,000 books, which were given away over a weekend’s time.
What makes Barbara’s backyard so great for accommodating events is that it’s really the front yard – with five big doors opening onto the street. So at the last Book Blast in 2016, people could easily pull their car up and offload donations.
All the events are completely free, she said. “Our motto remains ‘Twice a year, your money back if you’re dissatisfied!’ ”
Sunset neighbors find out when there’s an event at “The Blue House” when the owners put up a sign.
Perhaps their most unique event was the Fix-it Fair. One day, she and Paul were repairing things in their yard with one of the doors open. People looked in, sighed, and wondered – aloud – how they could get what they needed fixed. Barbara took heed.
“I found six women who sew and brought them over with their sewing machines. I rounded up welders, electricians, knife sharpeners, carpenters and others who were willing to fix things for free,” she said.
Other favorite gatherings include the Gazillion Family Flea Market, Dessert and Dancing and Sunday Silent Garden.
Barbara’s skill in pulling off successful events could come from her background in writing and marketing. She wrote copy for major department store catalogs and a financial column for The Examiner when she worked for a tax attorney. Then again, she just seems to be one of those naturally good-natured types who love to bring people together. Happy is a word she uses a lot.
“I had a very happy childhood traveling with my family to many countries when my father was in the State Department,” she said. “I feel very happy to live in the Sunset. I swear there is serotonin in the water. Everyone smiles walking down the street.
“Hearing laughter makes me so happy.”
Events like the Haunted House that require a lot of construction work are too much for her these days. Her husband died in 2017. But that’s not going to stop the parties. “Spreading joy and happiness while hosting gatherings in the Inner Sunset is in my blood,’’ she said. “I am continuing the tradition.”
There’s lots of demand for another Fix-it Fair,” she added. To find out more or to sign up as a volunteer go to www.BarbarasList.com.
Contact Jan at jrobbins-seniorbeat@sfcommunityliving.org
Members of the Kotobuki Taiko drumming group, which was formed by Carol Ayers, perform at the Stonestown YMCA. (Photo by Gene Cohn)
At the Cole Valley Fair in September, 11 members of the Kotobuki Taiko group demonstrated that seniors can drum energetically and with passion. They can also get healthier doing it.
The Kotobuki (longevity) Taiko group was formed nine years ago at The Stonestown Family YMCA Annex, under the leadership of volunteer teacher Carol Ayers, 73, a longtime Taiko drummer.
“I had some surgeries, and couldn’t play up to my best level, but I wanted to continue with Taiko so I went to the Y and offered to start a class,” Ayers said.
Today, Ayers oversees three levels of classes, with 45 students ranging in age from 60 to 85; 40 women and five men. She and another teacher, Fumi Spencer, age 89, teach the seniors and watch them thrive. “Having an infirmity is no barrier to playing – people can sit and play,” Ayers said.
The performance was a chance for the Kotobuki group to share its art form. Andrea Lai Pujolar, 73, loves to bang on the drum. “I enjoy performing because I can beat as hard as I can. I love the energy that it produces in me!” she said.
“Because the response to rhythm is basic to human functioning,” says neurologist Barry Bittman, “it’s no wonder that drummers and observers alike are uplifted. Drumming has been a sacred act since ancient times.”
It was believed that by imitating the sounds of thunder, the spirits of rain would be forced into action. Drumming was used to thank the gods for bountiful crops, and shamans used drumming as a means of reaching a trance-like state.
Today, Taiko drummers perform in festivals and concerts throughout the world. Taiko is a Japanese word meaning a drumming style, a drum group, drum music and the drum itself. The drums range in size from a snare drum (shime) to the most common size, that of a wine barrel. They are made from strips of wood and covered in cow or horse hide.
According to physician and health writer Christiane Northrup, drumming releases endorphins and alpha waves, which are associated with feelings of well-being. Northrup says drumming synchronizes the brain’s left and right hemispheres, strengthening feelings of insight and creativity.
Taiko drumming also elicits feelings of camaraderie and community in the Kotobuki group. “Drumming can be a tremendous social experience,” Bittman said.
“It’s a great physical activity. It keeps me young to keep my body moving,” said Pujolar, who opened the show blowing into a conch shell. She said her breath was strengthened from many years of martial arts. She has a 4th degree Black Belt in karate.
Pujolar has been studying drumming between six to seven years at the Stonestown Family YMCA Annex. But it’s so popular, getting into the group can be difficult . Ayers said the wait list, which has 18 people already, is closed.
In 2014, Ayers’ students nominated her for a Jefferson Award, which is sponsored by the local KPIX television station. The Jefferson Award is given to people in the Bay Area community who make a special contribution. Ayers’ students say they have always viewed her as a “sensei,” which in Japanese is a teacher who is completely dedicated to her students and the art form.
Despite arthritis, Ayers continues to play, teach and oversee classes at the Stonestown YMCA, which offers numerous programs for seniors, most of them for free.
“My journey with Taiko has been a blessing. When you have passion for something, the rewards are great. I want to carry on the tradition of mentoring students and watching them mentor others.”
