Some people carry a heavy life and become bitter. Helen Hayes carried one of the heaviest lives you will ever hear about and became someone you want to sit next to at breakfast. Helen is the author of Secrets, Shame and Silence, a memoir that begins with grinding poverty in the Pacific Northwest and does not let up from there. Murder, suicide, foster care, loss, and a few continents in between. And yet the woman who shows up in this episode is funny, radiant, and completely uninterested in playing the victim. In this conversation, we cover a lot of ground. Helen's childhood. The five years in foster care that she calls heaven. A career speaking for Pacific Bell in the early 1950s, where she predicted wristwatch telephones to auditoriums full of people who had no idea what she was talking about. A marriage. A tragedy. A one-suitcase move to San Francisco. Three years in Spain. A chance encounter at a Denny's counter that changed everything. And Al-Anon, which helped her finally name the thread that ran through her whole life. Helen is 91.5 years old. She still speaks for ACA, Adult Children of Alcoholics, and she has no plans to slow down. Read the book! Secrets, Shame and Silence is available now on Amazon.

David Knepler has lived a life that refuses to travel in a straight line. Raised in Connecticut by a professor-hypnotist father and a glazier's daughter, he studied acting in 1975 Greenwich Village, got arrested protesting nuclear power, picked oranges for room and board, helped pioneer the Bay Area natural foods movement, and eventually found his calling as a gerontologist. He recently retired from LITA (Love Is the Answer), a Marin County nonprofit that has been matching volunteers with isolated older adults for over 50 years, always at no charge. Now in his early 70s, David finds himself becoming the very person he spent decades caring for. He talks about what that feels like, why admitting you're wrong is one of life's great teachers, where evil really comes from, and the one thing he'd tell his younger self. Get involved with LITA: 415-472-LITA ⁠https://litamarin.org/⁠ Produced by Sound Legacy, a legacy film and audio studio in San Rafael, CA. Learn more at MySoundLegacy.com.

Michele Hughes has spent her life doing things most people only dream about: building a luxury real estate empire across Aspen, Kauai, and San Francisco, and now hosting Ageless and Timeless, a leading podcast on longevity and wellness. In this conversation, Michele sits down with us to talk about what it means to reinvent yourself, why the stories we tell about aging matter, and what she's learned from hundreds of conversations with the world's top health and wellness experts. This one is warm, wide-ranging, and full of wisdom. Ageless and Timeless Podcast: agelessandtimeless.com Sound Legacy is a Bay Area show about meeting our elders, listening to great storytellers, and celebrating the people doing good work in our communities. www.MySoundLegacy.com

Our guest today is John Roosevelt Boettiger, psychologist, author, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. He is also one of the very few living people who spent his childhood inside the Roosevelt White House, where his grandfather Franklin was busy running the free world, and his grandmother Eleanor was traveling it. While John is the grandson of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, he’s also the son of Anna Roosevelt and John Boettiger, a Chicago Tribune reporter who fell in love with the president's daughter on the campaign train in 1932. His book, "A Love in Shadow," tells the story of their marriage, and of his own long journey to understand a father changed by war and lost far too soon. In this conversation, John shares witty, warm, and deeply personal stories from his years inside the wartime White House, including memories of Churchill, of Eleanor, and of the man he simply called Papa. We talk about his father's moral injury, his mother's quiet courage, and the complicated grace of growing up a Roosevelt. We also talk about John's years as a civil rights activist, his time in Selma, and what it means to carry that history forward into a political moment like this one. It is a remarkable life. We are lucky he wrote it down, and luckier still that he came in on a Sunday to share it. Find John's book "Love and Shadow" here - https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/love-shadow-story-anna/author/boettiger-john/

Cece O'Connor grew up wanting to be Barbra Streisand. She ended up spending decades at the bedsides of the dying. In between: theater on the docks of Nova Scotia, oncology wards in Toronto, and years inside the psychiatric emergency system in San Francisco. Today, she works as an end-of-life consultant and death doula in the San Francisco Bay Area, helping people and families navigate what most of us spend our whole lives avoiding. This is a conversation about listening, presence, and what it looks like to show up for someone at the very end. Learn more at www.cecechats.com

In this episode of The Sound Legacy Podcast, Shessa reflects on a life shaped by art, performance, storytelling, and loss. From childhood dance and early writing to embodying goddesses on stage, she shares how creativity, humility, and memory have guided her sense of meaning. The conversation also includes a discussion with Danica about her motivations for joining Little Brothers – Friends of the Elderly and why she chose to volunteer for the podcast project, highlighting the role of service, listening, and human connection.

In this episode of The Sound Legacy Podcast, 92-year-old Janey Norman reflects on a life rooted in history, care, and service. Born in Texas in the 1930s and raised in San Francisco, Janey shares stories of migration and education. She speaks about her deep love for music and African art, her lifelong commitment to People with intellectual and developmental disabilities—including her work with the Special Olympics—and the relationships that shaped her life, from knowing figures like Jesse Owens and Miles Davis to mentoring and caring for those most vulnerable. The episode also includes a conversation with the young volunteer who conducted the interview, Bianca, who speaks about her own background, motivations, and why she chose to take part in the Little Brothers – Friends of the Elderly podcast project.

Our guest today is Paula Marks, Vice President of At Home Caregivers. We talk about her early life—from Northern Ontario to Barbados—and how growing up with independence and uncertainty shaped the way she understands people. Paula shares her perspective on aging and care, and why good caregiving isn’t about fixing what’s broken, but about showing up and being present. With a focus on dignity, empathy, and accountability, Paula helps families support their loved ones through the realities of aging.

Have you thought about what happens when you die? Not with your soul, or consciousness, but with your bank account, your telephone, your life insurance, your photos, your computer? Well, our guest, Stacey Tunteri, sure has, and she wants to share her findings with YOU! Stacey is a life and legacy organizer in the San Francisco Bay Area. She approaches her work from a place of deep knowing and personal experience. If you or someone you love needs to get their collective act together, I highly recommend reaching out to Stacey for a compassionate, gentle, yet effective consultation. Share and enjoy! ⁠www.StaceyTunteri.com⁠

Gary Arndt has visited over 140 countries, spoken on every continent, and produced more than 1,400 episodes of his podcast ⁠Everything Everywhere Daily⁠. But beneath the stats is a storyteller who’s driven not by clicks, but by curiosity. In this wide-ranging conversation, we dig into the evolution of online content, the dangers of algorithmic gatekeepers, and why podcasting might be the last true vestige of the old internet. Gary shares how a background in competitive debate shaped his approach to storytelling, how he survived the collapse of travel media in 2020, and why asking “why is the alphabet in alphabetical order?” might be more useful than it sounds.

A thoughtful, funny, and unexpectedly hopeful look at where we’ve been—and where we’re heading.

http://everything-everywhere.com/