Kevin Fisher-Paulson

San Francisco

Columnist at San Francisco Chronicle

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Articles

Time to say a final goodbye, and thanks

Sep 5, 2024 | sfchronicle.com | Kevin Fisher-Paulson

Editor’s note: Chronicle columnist Kevin Fisher-Paulson died early Thursday, Sept. 5, after a 15-month struggle with cancer. He wrote this column shortly before he died. An obituary for Kevin will be published soon. Almost a decade ago, this column began on a baseball diamond on a block in the Outer, Outer, Outer, Outer Excelsior. Excelsior.
A toast to those who show up even when you tell them not to

Jul 16, 2024 | msn.com | Kevin Fisher-Paulson

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A toast to those who show up even when you tell them not to

Jul 16, 2024 | sfchronicle.com | Kevin Fisher-Paulson

San Francisco Chronicle LogoHearst Newspapers LogoIn 1991, my husband Brian and I moved from Jersey City to San Francisco. We reinvented ourselves: the classic Western romance of the deputy and the dance hall girl: Brian with ODC San Francisco as well as many other Bay Area choreographers. Me with the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office. We bought a bungalow in the Outer, Outer, Outer, Outer Excelsior. We adopted Zane and Aidan. And all of that has gone into this column.
A good news/bad news report on the state of my brain

Jul 9, 2024 | sfchronicle.com | Kevin Fisher-Paulson

Zane and I do not argue now nearly as much as when I was first diagnosed. Back then, whenever he asked me to buy him a hoodie or have a friend over at midnight and I said, “No,” he replied, “That’s the cancer on your brain.” Since then, I’ve made it a point of honor not to have cancer on my brain. Oh, it’s in my right kidney, my left lung, my right hip, somewhere on my scapula, a nudge in my spine, and basically bursting out of my lymph glands. But not in my brain.
Make no mistake: Parenting is not an error-free vocation

Jun 25, 2024 | sfchronicle.com | Kevin Fisher-Paulson

Parents make mistakes. Sometimes it takes the child a while to catch on to that. For me, this came during the fourth grade. I was sitting at the kitchen table, studying out loud for an American history test. Sister Mary Florence was the toughest nun in the convent, and that’s going some; Brother X referred to them as the Little Sisters of the Gestapo.
How to embrace the challenge of raising a special-needs kid

Jun 18, 2024 | sfchronicle.com | Kevin Fisher-Paulson

No journey is unique and yet every journey is unique. Others have walked before us. Others will follow the path later, and maybe wonder at the footprints we left or the detours we took. My husband, Brian, and I now begin our journey as the parents of a college student. We made every mistake we could in primary and secondary schools. We volunteered for every field trip. We shot off our mouths to more than one principal. Now we get to mess up tertiary school.
A journey of a thousand miles ends at a prom

May 14, 2024 | flipboard.com | Kevin Fisher-Paulson

The prom, short for promenade, is an American rite of passage. Derived from debutante balls, a prom changes the teenager even when they don’t know …
’Tis lovely: A sentiment to celebrate even the most mundane things

Mar 26, 2024 | sfchronicle.com | Kevin Fisher-Paulson

In 1941, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia announced a plan to relieve the congestion at what would become LaGuardia Airport in New York. They converted some swampland at the edge of the city, in Jamaica, Queens, into what was intended to be the world’s largest airport: Idlewild. On Dec. 24, 1963, six weeks after the assassination of the president, it was renamed John F. Kennedy Airport. American Telephone and Telegraph (“Ma Bell”) maintained a building there, and my father, Hap, worked there for years.
When your sympathetic ear advises not complaining

Mar 19, 2024 | sfchronicle.com | Kevin Fisher-Paulson

San Francisco Chronicle LogoHearst Newspapers LogoWhy does a person get up in the morning? Some days it’s a way to escape dreams. For the past year, I’ve had this recurring nightmare that I was running late for my job at Gimbel’s, or at the jail, and the subway stopped. And I had to run, only my feet didn’t move. When I woke up, it was a relief. But most days most people aren’t waking up from something. Most people are waking up toward something. Why does a person get up in the morning?
Trying Italian and French is fun, but English is nice to come home to

Mar 12, 2024 | sfchronicle.com | Kevin Fisher-Paulson

San Francisco Chronicle LogoHearst Newspapers LogoAnd, now, the final chapter of our European vacation …We started on the Orient Express. Well, that’s how the travel agent billed it, though try as I might I never found Hercule Poirot. My husband, Brian, and I took a train ride through the Swiss Alps. Large lakes and churches were dwarfed by the even larger mountains. We sped by Mount Pilatus, where legend has it Pontius Pilate was buried.